


The Meddling Influence of Video Footage on Interhuman Relationships

by nanuk_dain



Series: MCU Slash Fanart: Avengers, Deadpool [35]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, BAMF Steve Rogers, BAMF Tony Stark, First Time, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Jarvis is awsome, M/M, Steve Feels, Team as Family, Tony Feels, Tony Has Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-07-29 06:44:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 31,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16258802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nanuk_dain/pseuds/nanuk_dain
Summary: Steve wakes in the hospital with no memories of how he got there. Natasha provides some enlightenment and Tony is suspiciously absent, although Steve is sure he remembers him sitting by his bedside, holding his hand.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Always](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11047113) by [nanuk_dain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nanuk_dain/pseuds/nanuk_dain). 



> This fic was inspired by the manip 'Always' (see below). Somehow the idea didn't leave me, I wanted to explore what would happen if Steve saw the footage of Tony protecting him. It was supposed to be a short, 2.000-something word fic, but somehow it blew totally out of proportion and turned into 31.500 words. I hope you don't mind ^_^

[ ](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/nanuk_dain/16335757/127660/127660_original.jpg)

The first thing Steve becomes aware of is pain. It's not in a specific part of his body, it's more an overall sensation that takes up almost all of his mind. He feels like he's floating, like there's no space or time. He can't do anything but exist in the non-place, and it's a condition he distinctly dislikes.

Then his focus shifts to another sensation. It's tiny, almost lost to the overwhelming pain, but it's there nonetheless and Steve latches onto it because it feels good. It's pleasant, it's soft and warm, and somehow he knows it's important that he doesn't lose sight of it, doesn't let it disappear in the suffocating pain. He concentrates on it, tries to understand what it is and where it comes from. The effort it takes him to not lose it distracts him from the pain and it somehow becomes manageable. 

Slowly Steve becomes aware of his body. He begins to feel his limbs, the way his chest expands with each breath he takes, the pleasantly cool temperature of the air touching his skin. It's a process, slow but steady, but it allows Steve to take stock of his current condition and eases the afore overwhelming pain to a bearable level. Steve concentrates on the pleasant sensation again and manages to locate it somewhere down his left arm.

It's a hand. Fingers tightly wrapped around his. No, not wrapped around, intertwined. He can feel the warmth where they rest between his own fingers, where the palm touches his and creates the pleasant feeling that he noticed. The grip is loose but firm, a strange mixture that puzzles Steve and sparks his curiosity enough that he tries with all his might to peel open his eyes. It takes longer than he'd like and requires much more strength than he expected, but when the first visual impressions fill his mind, it's of a stark white wall with a table in front of it and a TV mounted in the perfect hight to watch from the bed. He's in a hospital, then, his mind concludes when taking in the smells of strong disinfectant and the sensation of starched sheets against his skin. The question is how he got here, and why.

It's dark, the only light coming from the city outside the windows and the machines around the bed, drawing a meaningless pattern of coloured spots in the semi-darkness of the room. Steve turns his head, slowly and carefully because it hurts and takes so much effort, but he needs to see who is responsible for the pleasant feeling that helped him out of the world of pain.

The first thing he can make out in the dimness is the arm attached to the hand holding his. He follows it and sees a shock of dark hair on the bed next to his hip, where a head is resting on the arm that's not outstretched to hold Steve's hand. The neck is awkwardly crooked because the man is slouched on a plastic chair that's pulled close to the bed. There's a jacket carelessly slung over the back of the chair, as if he's been here a while and wanted to get more comfortable.

Steve recognises Tony immediately, and it leaves him baffled. _Tony_ is at his side in the hospital - and obviously has been for some time by the looks of it - and he's holding Steve's hand in a grip that hasn't really loosened even in sleep, as if he's afraid Steve might disappear if he lets go. It doesn't make sense, and Steve wonders again what has happened to put him in this hospital bed. Must have been bad if it makes Tony stay by his side even at night, makes him hold Steve's hand.

Steve's gaze flickers back to where Tony's face is turned towards him. He takes in the short brown hair, tousled as if somebody ran their fingers through it too many times, and the once neatly trimmed goatee that is starting to be undermined by the growth of stubble. Tony is fast asleep, but he doesn't look peaceful. Steve notices the shadows under his eyes and the tight set of his mouth. He looks exhausted and worried, even in sleep. 

There's a butterfly bandage over a cut above his eyebrow and some discolouring from a bruise around it. They've been in some kind of fight or battle, then. Steve can't remember who - or what - they've been up against this time, but whatever it was, it must be the reason Steve is hospitalised. It makes his head ache trying to remember, and Steve closes his eyes to counter the pain. He intends to rest his eyes for just a moment, but then the darkness takes him back against his will. Steve concentrates on the feeling of Tony's fingers between his again when he feels himself slip back into unconsciousness, and the pain isn't quite so bad anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go, the next chapter. I'm sorry that they're so short, but my Muse demanded it. The next one is going to be a lot longer ^_^ 
> 
> If you feel like it, make my day with a wee comment? *puppy dog eyes* I'm a huge fan of comments :D

When Steve opens his eyes again, the sun is lighting up the room. It's so bright that he has to close his eyes again, and he can't quite hold back a pained groan. His head throbs, but the intense pain he remembers from before is gone. The serum is obviously doing its job. 

A touch to his lower arm anchors him in the present. "Take it easy, Steve. You've been out for quite some time."

For a moment Steve is lost and disoriented. That is _not_ the voice he expected to hear. It's too light and too calm. He slowly, carefully opens his eyes again and peers at the person touching his arm. 

It's Natasha. She's wearing casual clothes and Steve notices an already healing bruise on her jaw. Steve's gaze flickers through the room, but there's nobody else present. Where is Tony? He really wants to know where Tony is. He's sure he was here...

"What happened?" Steve finds himself asking instead, his voice oddly scratchy and hoarse, and he clears his dry throat. Natasha lets go of his arm and reaches for the water bottle on the bedside table. She efficiently opens it and puts a straw in before she hands the bottle to Steve. He gratefully takes a few slow sips and feels the cool liquid ease the roughness of his throat. "Thanks."

Natasha gives him a quick nod and eyes him carefully for another few seconds before she asks, "How are you feeling?"

Steve has to think about that for a moment. He's not used to this kind of lingering pain anymore, but he remembers it only too well from his life pre-serum. "Like I was run over by an uber tank - several times."

Natasha actually smirks at that. "Close enough."

"What happened?" Steve asks again because he still isn't quite sure about what it was that managed to land him in hospital.

"You took a direct hit to the head from an unknown energy weapon and you were out for three days, which in and of itself is pretty worrying." She eyes him for a moment, obviously deciding on how to go on from here. "What do you remember?" 

Steve frowns in concentration and tries to get it all together. "We got a call because of an attack by unknown creatures downtown, we engaged them upon arrival. They seemed to be concentrating their attack on important targets of traffic and infrastructure, so we split into groups to cover a wider area. You and Barton were assigned the Central Station, Rhodes and Sam took to the streets, Thor covered the subway and Hulk mostly just went smashing creatures to his heart's content. Tony and I were heading to the Brooklyn Bridge, we encountered a large group of aliens before we got there and engaged them. And then... nothing."

Natasha nods and seems pleased. "Well, that's about the moment you were knocked out. At least we know that you didn't lose any memories."

Steve has to agree with her. It could have been worse. "Yeah, that is actually good news." 

"It sure is. For you to be unconscious for three days means that something very strong hit you. We're still not sure whether it was the impact or some component of the energy blast that made you react like that." Natasha folds her arms in front of her chest, and Steve just knows he's not going to like what she'll say next. "They want to keep you here for some tests. Fury wants to be sure you weren't affected beyond being knocked out. He asked me to politely let you know that you won't get cleared for active duty if you try to escape. His words."

"I won't." Steve barely refrains from rolling his eyes. He's fine, now that the serum is doing its job and is repairing whatever damage the blast did to him. He doesn't feel nearly as bad as he did when he woke to find Tony sleeping beside him in that uncomfortable looking plastic chair that Natasha pointedly avoids sitting on. That reminds him, he really wants to know if that actually happened or if it was a dream. Right now he's not sure what to believe. It seems so out of character for Tony to stay by his side in his sickroom - for days, if his rundown appearance is anything to go by. But maybe it didn't really happen, it could also have been a trick of his twisted mind, Steve muses.

Steve frowns and disputes whether he should ask, then he decides to go for it. "Nat, where is Tony?"

"Why do you ask?" Natasha looks relaxed and at ease, but Steve knows her well enough to be aware that she's stalling to get the lay of the land. 

"He was here, wasn't he? I remember waking up, sometime in the middle of the night, and Tony was there." Steve points at the chair as if it proves his point. He can't bring himself to elaborate on how he found Tony sleeping, obviously exhausted, but still firmly holding onto Steve's hand in an almost desperate grip. It seems too intimate, something he's reluctant to share. Especially if he's not sure it's real - because if it isn't, it would disclose more about his own mind than he's comfortable sharing.

Natasha waits a few moments before she replies. "Yes, he was here." 

Steve nods slowly, pensively. That's only half of what he wants to know, and he can tell that she's not going to elaborate if he doesn't ask. "How long did he stay?"

"The entire time. Right until you showed signs of waking up, actually, and it was reasonably certain that you were going to be all right." This time Natasha doesn't hesitate and it feels to Steve as if she has come to a decision, although he has no idea what about. 

Her answer confirms that his memory is actually a memory and not a dream induced by his injury. He's not quite sure what to make of that, though. 

"Get some sleep, Steve." Natasha's voice might sound even and calm, but there's no mistaking the order beneath her words. "The more you rest, the sooner you'll get out of here."

Steve is surprised to actually feel like resting might be a good idea. He's not exactly exhausted, but he's not entirely back on his feet yet, he can tell that easily. He knows his body very well, and right now it's demanding for him to allow it to spend its energy on healing instead of running around. He decides to listen to it since there's no reason not to at the moment. No emergency, nobody to rescue or defend, no crises to avert. Since it has been days since the attack and Natasha is here instead of out in the field, Steve knows that the attack was countered successfully.

He nods at Natasha and lies back on the pillow. She gives him a little smile of obvious approval and takes the bottle from his hand to return it to the bedside table. Steve doesn't even manage to stay awake long enough to see her put it down.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha, chapter 3! It's getting interesting now... *evil grin* I hope you like it! Btw, the manip from chapter 1 actually takes place during this chapter (well, more or less. You'll see :D ).

The next day passes in a blur. Sam is there when Steve wakes up, sitting in the chair with a book in his hands. He looks up as soon as Steve wakes and greets him with a smile that shows his relief. Later in the morning, following a boring row of tests, Bruce comes by, and finally Clint appears with a box of donuts and a paper cup of real coffee for Steve that he somehow managed to sneak past the nurses. Tony never shows. 

Steve is glad that his healing factor kicked in full force during the night and by the time it's midday they allow him to leave the hospital. Natasha is there to pick him up and escort him back to the Tower, because he's still under orders not to overdo it and they haven't cleared him for active duty yet. She knows he's planning to ignore that order, that's why she manoeuvres him into the shared living room and doesn't let him go to his quarters.

"Since you don't know what happened after you were knocked unconscious, I've collected the reports of the mission, and JARVIS put together a collection of all kinds of video footage of the battle. It's from TV crews and official recording as well as amateur videos and such." She reaches for a tablet lying on the low glass table. "It should give you a pretty sound idea of what happened after you were hit."

"Thanks. I'm sure it will." Steve says and thereby submits to her unspoken command to not go to the gym. It's not that hard, especially because he's actually really curious to find out what happened. He profoundly dislikes being out of the loop like that.

Steve follows Natasha's non-verbal order to sit down on the common room's couch - she jerks her head at it and raises an eyebrow, and Steve knows better than to oppose her - and then she hands him the tablet. In a show of rare mother-henning, she returns from the kitchen a few minutes later with a bottle of water and a sandwich that almost boast at the seams with the amount of lettuce, ham and cheese she put on it. Steve just smiles in gratitude and accepts both, knowing better than to tease her about it. She always cares for those she considers 'her' people, but she usually doesn't do it this openly. Steve is well aware that it's a rare treat and he won't spoil it. It also tells him that she must have been really worried. 

When Natasha has left him alone in the living room, Steve takes up the sandwich and bites into it, enjoying to taste real food after the stuff the hospital insists on serving. He takes his time eating his food and makes sure to drink plenty of water, since nothing else is going to make him feel better anyway. Drugs don't really work on him anymore, after all.

Once he's finished his lunch, he takes up the tablet he put down next to him and reads the mission reports. They give him the big picture and let him know that the creatures weren't actually defeated, but retreated all at once, disappearing back to where they had come from in their small and highly mobile ships. Thor is currently off trying to find out who they are, and Tony and Bruce are analysing one of the ships that was damaged to the point that they left it behind. They're also hoping to gain some intel on the weapon that knocked out Steve. The clean-up is progressing steadily and the overall damage and loss of life is not as bad as expected. Steve is not comfortable knowing that they didn't actually manage to defeat the creatures and he's sure they'll try again, This isn't over yet. Let's just hope they'll have the time to recover and regroup before those aliens return.

When he has studied every shingle report, Steve checks out the video footage Natasha mentioned. Due to pretty much everyone carrying a camera in their smartphones these days, there is plenty of footage of by members of the public, and it makes it a lot easier to get a reasonably complete picture of what happened. Steve opts for the news features first, then he begins going over the amateur videos. 

He watches their quinjet land and then the team is spilling out of the back. It takes only a few minutes before they split up, the groups going in different directions at the highest speed they're capable of. Steve sees Iron Man pick him up to give him a lift to the Brooklyn Bridge, one arm steadily around Steve's waist, then they shoot out of the camera's angle. Yeah, _that_ Steve remembers. He won't admit it, but he loves flying with Tony. 

The video cuts off and another clip follows, showing Clint and Natasha in the Central Station. There are several more with sometimes only seconds, sometimes minutes of footage of the individual groups defending their assigned targets. JARVIS sorted them by each group so that Steve can get a reasonably complete picture of what happened where. Last come the clips that involve Tony and Steve, and Steve can't help tensing up. He watches Iron Man set down a short distance from the bridge, letting go of Steve at the precise moment Steve pushes off to land smack in the middle of a group of aliens, his shield out and swinging at full speed. Iron Man joins him immediately, shooting off repulsor blasts and smashing his way through the creatures to keep them from firing their energy based weapons. 

The bright light that follows each shot flares up at an increasing pace and Steve remembers what he watches, how he felt that he was almost not fast enough to block the shots that seemed to come from everywhere. They were hopelessly outnumbered, two against hundreds, it seems on the footage, but they never stop fighting. Steve is awed by the sync he sees in their movements, something he never consciously noticed when on the battlefield. They complete each other perfectly, never get in each other's way, instead making use of the opening the other offers: Steve ducking, Tony shooting a repulsor blast over his head; Tony shifting to the left to allow Steve to throw the shield only inches past his flank. It looks as if it's coordinated, yet Steve knows it isn't. Although he and Tony do training fights together - all of the team members practise with each other to get accustomed to their respective fighting styles - he can't remember having experienced such sync with him in training. It's strangely beautiful to watch.

Then there's one of those bright energy discharges hitting Steve in the side of the head, his cowl is flung off to the side by the force of the impact and Steve watches himself go down as if he was a puppet and someone cut his strings. He lands on the ground in a crumbled heap right there in the middle of the street and doesn't move again. Steve watches it with a kind of detached fascination, because instances where he is knocked out are rare and he's always willing to improve his performance. This occasion seems to be a combination of the still unknown weapon, the direct hit to his head and his own insufficient attention to his surroundings. He'll have to work on that.

Only seconds after Steve collapsed there is a blur shooting through the camera's range of view and then Iron Man is by his side, down on one knee, his hands reaching for Steve to obviously check on him. He never gets the chance to do so because suddenly he jerks to the side, hit into the shoulder by one of the bright energy discharges of their enemy's weapons. In an impressively quick reaction, Tony is up on his feet and shooting calculated repulsor blasts all around him at attackers that are mostly outside the camera's angle. He moves, to the side, the back, the front, always in those quick and efficient movements that Steve associates with Iron Man, but not with Tony. Steve always wondered how it comes that Tony and Iron Man move so differently, and he concluded that it must have something to do with how the suit works. Tony never moves like a trained warrior, Iron Man always does. 

Steve can't look away, his hands in a tight grip on the tablet he's holding. Never mind their differences, he's always been fascinated by Tony in the suit, by the way he moves, by his unorthodox approach to fighting, by the plain skill he shows in controlling the suit. Since Steve is usually involved in the fights as well, he rarely gets the chance to just watch him, though. This is one of the first opportunities he got, and he's fascinated by how Tony always keeps himself between Steve and the attackers. He whirls around and shoots repulsor blasts at any creature approaching them, but he always stays within a close radius of Steve's unconscious body. Steve definitely doesn't remember that. He actually doesn't remember Tony ever coming to his defence like that, to be that protective of anyone but Pepper. 

The camera angle changes, this time it's from somewhere above them and a little further away. The shaky quality of the video and the surroundings caught on film suggest that it's a cell phone camera some storeys up somewhere in a building. For minutes the scene doesn't change much, it's Steve lying still on the street and Iron Man's red and gold armour moving around him in a blur of colour and repulsor blasts. There seems to be no end to the attacking aliens, no matter how many Iron Man takes out, and there's no help approaching. Steve assumes that the rest of the team is equally busy, even without having to defend a knocked out team mate. Steve keeps watching and can't help frowning. He has known Tony long enough to be able to tell that he's tiring, yet Tony never ceases his defence of Steve.

Then he sees Tony grab Steve's shield that lies abandoned a few feet away from where Steve had crumpled. Tony suddenly crouches over him and raises the shield just as a shot is fired. It ricochets off the vibranium, but Steve can tell that it was a very close call. What strikes Steve is how Tony covers Steve with his own body in a quite obviously futile attempt to protect him. There's too much of Steve still exposed for the move to be effective, and Tony has to know that. It doesn't keep him from trying, though. The despair comes off him in waves, although his face is hidden behind Iron Man's impassive mask. It's obvious in his body language, though, in his attacks and even more so in his fierce defence of Steve's unmoving form.

As soon as the shot is diverted, Tony jumps up and fires a repulsor blast square in the middle of the attacker's face. The creature goes down instantly, but two more are already approaching, one from the left and one from behind them. Tony stands over Steve's body, keeping up the shield to block the energy blast coming from the left while simultaneously shooting a repulsor blast behind him at the other creature. Then he throws the shield similar to how Steve likes to do, and thanks to the distance of the camera to the scene Steve can see it go in a wide circle, hitting three aliens before embedding itself in the side of an abandoned car. Tony holds out his arm and the shield comes flying to him, and Steve assumes he magnetised his suit's arm, same as the mechanism he developed for Steve. It's a feature Steve greatly appreciates, it makes his life so much easier to be able to retrieve his shield without having to go and get it.

It does something to his insides to see Tony wielding the shield in pretty much the same way Steve usually does. It actually makes his heart flutter to watch Tony _protect Steve_ with his own shield. There's something beautiful and intimate to it, and although Steve has seen other members of the team seen use the shield before, it's different with Tony. He seems to understand it in a way that goes beyond what the others manage, something Steve has always felt when using it himself. 

Tony keeps throwing the shield and also makes use of it to deflect the odd energy blast. Without any obvious reason, the creatures suddenly turn around and flee the scene, leaving as abruptly as if they were given a command. Steve is under no illusion that it was the Avenger's doing. Not just because of the reports he read, but also because of what he just witnessed. If the aliens had kept coming, they would have overrun them at some point in the very close future. It's not a very reassuring revelation.

Despite the creatures retreating, Tony remains in a defensive position above Steve's unconscious body, obviously not trusting the sudden change in events and unwilling to let down his guard. It takes a moment before he accepts that the creatures are not coming back, at least not right that moment, and as soon as he sure there's no immediate danger, Tony sinks down to his knees next to Steve. Steve can see the gauntlet peel back from his right hand and then Tony's fingers press to Steve's pulse point at his neck. For a moment Steve wonders why Tony is checking on his condition with an old-fashioned technique such as feeling the pulse point when he most definitely has an entire array of scanning tools hidden in his suit. There a tense moment, then Tony's entire body seems to sag in the suit, his shoulders dropping and the tension leaving his body. Only now that it's gone does Steve realise how much tension there had been.

Tony straightens after a few seconds, carefully taking hold of Steve's shoulder and turning him around until he's lying on his back. Tony remains still for about ten seconds, obviously running a scan to determine Steve's condition. Whatever the result is, Tony seems to decide that it's safe to move him. His bare hand reaches for the mechanism on Steve's arm so that the shield attaches to it, then the gauntlet covers his hand again and he picks Steve up, bridal style. Steve is amazed by the careful gentleness inherent in Tony's movements despite the bulky suit. Steve is limp like a corpse in Tony's arms, his head has fallen forwards and rests against the red metal of Iron Man's breast plate, his left arm with the shield is hanging lifelessly at his side. It's kind of freaky to watch himself like that, it's not something he'd usually see, after all. 

When Tony is satisfied that he has a secure grip on Steve, he lifts off the ground much slower and with much more consideration than he usually does. He's quite obviously trying not to upset Steve in any way that might make things worse. Within seconds they're out of range of the camera. It follows them as they lift off, but soon they're just a tiny black dot against the cloudy sky. The video stops and the screen remains blank, telling Steve that he reached the end of the collection of footage.

Steve lets the tablet sink down until it rests in his lap. He can't help taking a deep breath and letting out it out in a huff that is close to a sigh. He feels unbalanced and somehow lost, although he doesn't know why. There's no reason for it, after all he now has the complete picture of what happened. But instead of making him feel in control, it actually leaves him confused. Somehow he's left with more questions than answers.

Steve lets his head fall back until it comes to rest on the back of the couch and stares up against the ceiling. Tony cares for him, that much is obvious to anyone watching the video clips of the fight. But surely Tony would have done the same thing had it been Natasha or Rhodes who'd been knocked unconscious, or anybody else on the team. He may try to hide it, but Steve knows he cares deeply for the team. Steve has long since understood that Tony's sarcasm and pointed remarks are more a front than truth, but he always thought it was because Tony doesn't want to admit that he doesn't find Steve quite as horrible as he'd professed after their initial meeting during the Battle of New York. The jibes have become more teasing than vicious in the course of time, a clear sign that Tony doesn't really mean them. He does the same thing with the rest of the team to various degrees, depending on how comfortable he is with them. Bruce gets the least of it, Clint the most. Steve is a close second to Clint, but that's probably because Clint takes a profound pleasure in ribbing Tony as much as Tony enjoys doing it to him. Sometimes Steve can't fight off the association of two little boys in the sandbox fighting over the shovel. 

Yet what he just watched feels different, not like a team mate protecting another team mate... Steve raises the tablet and replays the videos, jumping to the moment when Tony took up the shield, when he covered Steve with his own body. Steve wants to make sure he's not imagining things, that it's not his memory playing tricks on him. But no, he sees it again: There is a desperation to Tony's body language that seems too extreme given the more or less reserved relationship he and Steve share. And when the fight continues, it becomes even more pronounced, only receding to a certain degree when Tony checks for Steve's pulse and obviously find one. Steve frowns at the screen and wishes he could see Tony's face, it would tell him much more than Iron Man's impassive helmet. 

It's the end, though, when Tony picks him up, that convinces Steve that he really is _not_ imagining things. Tony is handling him with such care that Steve is even tempted to call it tenderness. It's something Tony rarely displays, Steve thinks he only ever saw it when Tony interacted with Pepper, especially when they were still together. He has most certainly never seen it directed at _himself_. There's no reason why it should be. 

Steve stops the video and puts the tablet down next to him on the couch. He's not sure what to make of all of this. He's willing to admit - to himself, at least, in the privacy of his own thoughts - that he's always been fascinated by Tony, even at the beginning when he still disliked the man and thought him to be superficial and hungry for fame. He knows better now, and it only adds to his fascination that he actually really likes Tony. There's so much more to him than meets the eye, mostly because Tony doesn't want it to meet the eye. He hides his generosity, his care and affection for others under many layers of snark and flashiness, and it works exceptionally well. It definitely worked on Steve. 

He's sure that Rhodes and Pepper are among the very few people who always managed to see behind Tony's façade, and they've been loyal to him through good and bad. Steve thinks them both not only intelligent, headstrong and genuine, but also very capable of not taking Tony's bullshit, so the fact that they're still by his side says a lot about Tony, too. You don't get graced with friendships like that if you don't have _something_ inside you that makes you deserve such loyalty. 

It's not the first time that Steve's mind wanders to the what-ifs he usually forbids himself to even contemplate. What if he was part of the people Tony trusts and loves? What if Tony and him were more than friends? What would it feel like to see Tony smile at him like he always smiled at Pepper when there were a couple? What if Steve managed to earn Tony's trust to the point that he let his masks go around Steve, showed his true self without hiding anything? What if he dared to try to get to know Tony better, a first step towards earning that trust? Would Tony even let him, or would he hit Steve with sarcastic remarks until he gave up? What if Steve didn't give up, pushed through it all and convinced Tony that he really means it? What would it feel like to be loved by Tony?

In face of the evidence he has on video, it's difficult to completely dismiss these thoughts the way he usually does. Maybe 'firmly banning them to the very back of his mind' is a more accurate description of what he usually does. Tony has always kept him at arm's length, contrary to other members of the team such as Bruce or Natasha. Steve always believed that Tony simply doesn't _want_ to know him any better and is perfectly fine with the level of acquaintance they currently have. Suddenly he's not so sure anymore. Tony's actions during that last fight suggest otherwise. 

Steve closes his eyes and passes his hands over his face. He doesn't bother containing the heartfelt sigh that wants out of his chest and wonders when things became this complicated. Not that Tony has ever been a simple or easy person, but it's not just him making things complicated right now. Steve is well aware of his own part in it. Why can't he just see Tony as a team mate? Why does he have to want things he can't have? Is it true that he can't have them? Maybe he can, and that's the actual issue, that's what's making things complicated all of the sudden. Because Steve can see doors opening that he thought tightly and eternally shut before he saw that video footage. 

Steve lets his hands fall off his face and down to the fluffy couch cushions, staring at the ceiling again. It's quite the beautiful ceiling, actually, he never noticed before. It's not plain white, instead if a warm cream colour with subtle patterns. It fits the rest of the interior design, something that's certainly on purpose. Tony never leaves things to chance when he has a vision of what he wants them to be like.

After a few minutes of staring Steve lifts his head off the back of the couch and straightens with a sudden revelation. If JARVIS collected those videos for Steve, then Tony knows about them, knows what Steve saw. That actually changes things. Steve doubts that Tony thought about the possibility of somebody filming them back then, Tony hadn't acted for the camera. That means that something private, something _very personal_ was revealed by accident, and Tony is never comfortable with that. He needs things like this to happen on his terms, and Steve fully understands that given his own involuntary life in the spotlight. 

Oh yes, he definitely needs to talk to Tony. He just has to find him first, and Steve has an inkling that it won't be easy.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In comes Tony! He finally gets his screen time - I'm sure you were waiting for it ^_^ Enjoy!
> 
> PS: Thank you very much to the 69 people who subscribed to this fic! It means a lot (and I can't help liking the number of subscribers.... *dirty grin*)

His inkling is proven right. Although Steve is quite certain that Tony is in his workshop, he never manages to either gain entry or get Tony out of it. It's not that he doesn't see Tony, per se, it's more that they're never in the same room very long, and never alone. Tony seems to behave no different than normal with the others, but as soon as Steve joins them, Tony finds a reason to leave soon afterwards. They also don't have a single conversation that is not conducted in the course of work briefings. It unnerves Steve to the point that he feels himself grow short-tempered. He really feels the need to talk to Tony, because he instinctively knows something important changed when Tony defended him to the point of recklessness. He never gets the chance, though, Tony meticulously makes sure of that. Steve knows it's not coincidence.

When Steve finally does get to meet Tone face to face outside of a briefing, it's late one morning about a week after his release from the hospital. Steve comes into the kitchen to find Natasha sitting at the counter with a glass of orange juice in her hand instead of her usual cup of coffee, and a plate with eggs and toast in front of her. Tony is fiddling with the coffee maker, obviously not to make coffee, though, because the side panels of the machine are removed and its insides are showing. Tony is halfway lounging on the counter to get access to whatever part he's working on and Steve mostly just sees his legs and back, not much else. Steve can't keep his heart from speeding up at the sudden and unexpected opportunity to finally talk to Tony.

"Good morning." Steve greets as casually as he can when he joins Natasha at the counter. Tony seems to flinch for the fraction of a second, but he doesn't visibly react to Steve's presence other than that. 

"Morning, Cap. I fear the coffee will have to wait another ten minutes, but I'm almost done here." Tony informs him, his voice muffled by his close proximity to the entrails of the coffee maker. "How does shit like this happen here all the time? I really wish I knew who mistreated the poor coffee machine."

"Mistreated?" Steve asks quizzically while making his way over to the fridge to make himself a sandwich. Natasha follows him with her gaze before it flickers back to Tony. Steve has the odd feeling that she knows something she's not saying. And that it concerns him in some way, not the coffee machine. 

"Yeah, mistreated. The steam valve is bent completely out of shape and has pulled loose from the boiler, which means that the hot water for the coffee would end up everywhere, but certainly not in the cup it's supposed to go into." Tony doesn't once look up from what he's doing, but his hand holding a pair of pliers vaguely gestures towards the side panels of the coffee machine, now resting against the side of the counter. "Just look at those panels and tell me there was no violence involved."

Steve can't help his gaze flickering over to said panels, and one of them really is impressively dented. 

"Mistreated, I tell you." Tony grumbles. "Who _does_ that?"

"That would be Agent Barton, Sir." JARVIS provides almost cheerfully, as if he enjoys ratting out Clint.

That makes Tony raise his head enough that Steve can finally see his face. He's frowning. "How?"

"Target practise, Sir." JARVIS replies drily.

"Excuse me?" Tony sounds utterly offended. "He used this lovely, innocent, _very expensive_ coffee maker for target practise when there's _an entire shooting range_ two floors down?!"

"It was a bet between him and Thor, Sir. Thor dared him to hit something so small it was invisible to the naked eye and they chose the venting slot at the side of the coffee maker, to be hit from the furthermost spot on the balcony. While they both hit the coffee maker, it was Agent Barton who managed to hit the vent."

Natasha whistles through her teeth appreciatively. "Not bad."

Tony turns to glare at her. "Don't side with him! He's the reason you're drinking orange juice instead of coffee right now, keep that in mind."

"Actually, it was the force of Thor's hit that damaged the coffee maker, Sir. In their defence, they did use adhesive arrowheads instead of pointed ones." JARVIS continues and Steve has the sudden urge to tell him that it's not wise to say anything in Clint's defence. JARVIS probably knows that, anyway.

"I don't care!" Tony shouts and threateningly waves the pliers. "You. Do. Not. Shoot. The. Coffee Maker!" 

"Understood, Sir." JARVIS sounds almost smug. "Shall I taser them next time?"

"Yes! To your heart's content!" Tony agrees enthusiastically. "In fact, let's punish Clint and Thor: You taser them the next time they try to get a coffee from their victim! Do it as long as you feel it's necessary until they've learned their lesson."

Steve wonders if he should give them a fair warning, but he agrees that they do deserve to suffer some kind of consequence for depriving the rest of the team of coffee for no better reason than a bet. He throws Natasha a glance and she just shrugs, pointedly raising her glass of orange juice. So she won't tell them, either.

Tony leans back down to continue repairing the damaged device, still grumbling under his breath. Steve finishes assembling his sandwich and returns to the counter to sit on one of the high chairs and eat his breakfast. All the while he keeps watching Tony work and wonders how to best approach the subject. It's not optimal that they're not alone, but Steve is reasonably sure that without Natasha present, Tony would have fled the scene right away, so he's not complaining.

Steve finishes his sandwich and decides to go for it before Tony is done with his repair job and disappears into his workshop again, where Steve can't get to him. "Tony?"

"What, Cap?" Tony sounds distracted, as if he's only half paying attention. He's fiddling with something and suddenly shouts, "Ha! Gotcha!"

Steve feels uneasy, but he knows it's now or never. He decides to start off with something simple and positive, something Tony can't be offended by no matter what. "Tony, I wanted to thank you for last week. You know, when I got knocked out."

"Sure thing, Cap." Tony's voice is easy and casual and he never even looks at Steve, instead he keeps his focus on the coffee maker and begins to assemble several pieces. "Happens to the best of us. No big deal."

"You went above and beyond to keep me safe on that bridge. I saw the video footage of it." Steve tries to make his gratitude show in his voice, but he can't help noticing Tony tense at his last sentence. It lasts for only a second, then he seems to consciously relax and pushes off the counter until he's standing in front of it. 

"You're welcome. As I said, no big deal. I would have done it for everybody on the team." Tony looks at him for the fraction of a second before he averts his gaze and puts down his tools with almost studied casualness. He may look calm, but Steve knows he's everything but. There's a tense set to his shoulders despite his nonchalant attitude. 

Steve decides to push things, maybe he'll get Tony to finally talk to him. "In the video, you-"

"Really, Rogers?" Tony interrupts and there's no mistaking the annoyance in his voice. "I've got more important things to do than to sit down with you and have a heart to heart while we braid each other's hair. You got knocked out, I kept you alive long enough to get you out of it, end of story. There's an unknown alien race waiting to attack us, in case you forgot, and we still have no viable way to defend the city against them." 

Tony picks up the dented side panel of the coffee machine and raises it pointedly. "Plus, since we want to have coffee again, I'm going to the workshop to bend this back in the shape it's supposed to have before I watch JARVIS taser Clint and Thor."

He turns around without so much as another glance and walks out of the room in the direction of the elevator. Steve stares after him, feeling like Tony just slapped him in the face.

Maybe he's wrong, may he _is_ imagining things. This is not how Tony would behave if he really cared, if he really wanted... more. More than their reserved tolerance of each other, more than even friendship. This is how you behave if you try to get somebody to really and truly leave you alone. 

Maybe he should just take the hint and accept that Tony does not only not want him, but actually doesn't want anything more to do with him than they already have. Steve grits his teeth. The thought hurts.

He catches Natasha watching him over the rim of her glass of orange juice. One eyebrow rises when he catches her gaze, but he just silently shakes his head and leaves the kitchen. He really doesn't want to talk about this. Not now, not ever. He feels stupid enough as it is. 

Steve feels Natasha's gaze following him until he's out of her line of sight.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally one of the long chapters I promised - 7.000 word for one chapter will do, won't it? ^_^ I hope you like it!

Things do not get better after the kitchen incident. In fact, they get worse, although it looks for a moment as if there's a chance for improvement. 

Tony is almost constantly in the workshop with Bruce, but that can be explained by the amount of research they're doing on the damaged alien ship. What can't be explained away is how Tony almost openly avoids Steve, only being in the same room with him when there's no way around it, and that means briefings. _Only_ briefings. Even in training sessions Tony is not present whenever Steve is, but Steve knows that he's still training, mostly with Natasha and Rhodes. 

"He trained with me and Thor the day before yesterday." Sam says at breakfast when Steve complains about it, about how the team can't function if they don't all train with each other, if they don't know how the others will react in any given situation. 

"And with me last night." Clint adds from the other side of the table where he's devouring a sandwich that seems to consist mostly of eggs and bacon squished between two slices of toast soaked with bacon grease.

Steve doesn't quite know what to say to that, especially because he can't help feeling offended that Tony will happily train with _Clint_ of all people, but not with Steve. 

"Anyway, what's wrong with you and Stark of late?" Clint enquires while he wipes his hand on a napkin before reaching for his cup of coffee. Which Sam had to get for him, because Clint still gets electrocuted every time he tries to operate the coffee maker. Thor has been forgiven after he went down on one knee and sincerely apologised to the coffee maker.

All Steve can do in reply to Clint's question is shrug. It's not like he really knows. It's as if Tony pulled up an invisible wall that is placed smack between him and Steve, but doesn't affect his relationship with the rest of the team. And Steve is sure it was already there that morning in the kitchen. If he's entirely honest, it's always been there to a certain degree, but he only really noticed it negatively since he came home from the hospital. So something changed between the moment they left to fight off the aliens and the moment he woke up in hospital, and Steve knows it's not _him_ who changed. It's Tony, and whatever happened, it made him increase the distance to Steve as much as he possibly can without making it a public statement. Everybody on the team noticed, that's for sure, because Steve is asked by every single one of them at some point or another what happened. He still doesn't have an answer. 

Two days later Sam drags Steve to a team night in the living room on the common floor. Everybody is there, even Tony. And he's not leaving as soon as Steve arrives, which he counts as a win. Steve tries to make sure that he stays away from Tony as much as possible to not make him run, and it goes well until Thor hits Tony on the back in congratulation after he defeated Clint at Mario Kart. The force of his slap proves a little too much and makes Tony stumble forward. Unfortunately that's where Steve is standing, so Tony ends up smashed against Steve who reaches out on instinct to keep him from falling. Steve can feel Tony freeze in his arms before he jerks away, disappears into the elevator and is gone. Tony does not return, not even for the movie they'd planned for later.

Obviously that event doesn't improve things. It's the point where Tony retreats to the workshop to such an extent that Steve would have thought him missing or dead if not for Bruce's regular updates on their progress. At least it doesn't affect their interaction on the battlefield, which is good because those darn aliens do come back. Steve can't even begrudge them as much as he probably should because their timing is really convenient. It's been five weeks since their last attack and he's getting very frustrated. His destructive consumption of punching bags has reached critical levels, according to Natasha. Taking it out on those creatures is actually a nice change.

Tony and Bruce came up with a kind of shield for the energy blasts of the creatures' weapons. Since they're obviously unaffected by earth weapons, Tony suggested to just reflect their own blasts back at them. The chance that they can be seriously hurt by their own weapons is high - it's happened a few times during that first attack, so that's what they're counting on. That's why the shields look like overly large tennis rackets with an energised metal plate instead of a net. Tony had them mass produced in the past two weeks once he and Bruce had a working prototype ready, and they've been distributed to the police and military in case of an attack. Steve can't help thinking that it'll look like they're having a giant tennis match with the aliens instead of an actual battle.

Tony and Bruce also found out what it was that knocked out Steve: There's a frequency embedded in the aliens' energy blasts that messes with the brain waves to such an extent that it makes the body basically shut down. Tony and Bruce concluded that it's not the primary function of the energy blasts, though, the frequency is way to weak for that to be the case. It's more a 'lucky' side effect. It worked on Steve only because the blast hit him in the head and therefore right where it causes the most harm. Basically, him getting knocked out was purely bad luck. Had he been hit anywhere else, say his shoulder, it wouldn't have happened. In a weird way, that's actually reassuring.

As a consequence, Tony and Bruce came up with a way to keep the frequency from reaching the brain. Because what was a pretty bad hit for Steve would be deadly for anybody else, so that's why they're all wearing these strange helmets during the attack. Only the Hulk doesn't because he's not affected by the frequency. Some careful video analysis revealed that he'd been hit in the head more than once during the initial attack and it obviously didn't have any consequences. The police and the military also received the helmets, so Steve doesn't mind looking ridiculous in the silver monstrosities that were obviously designed more for function than beauty. They all look ridiculous, after all, and Clint is complaining by far the most, especially because Tony doesn't have to wear one. He modified the suit's helmet accordingly and is the only person not looking like a walking satellite dish. He likes mocking them, too, which doesn't help at all.

As soon as the fight begins for real, it shows pretty quickly that Tony's reasoning is correct. The creatures are indeed very vulnerable to their own weapons, and the most challenging thing is to actually reflect the blast to where you want it to go. It's not like anybody really had a chance to practise with the racket-shields before and the blasts don't exactly behave like a tennis ball, so especially at the beginning most blasts go astray. Steve gets the hang of it after a few misses and can't deny that there's an absurd element of fun to it. Thor is especially enjoying himself despite the fact that he can't use his hammer, which disturbed him a lot at the beginning of the attack. Now he's turning it into a contest with Clint, who's most eagerly trying to prove that he's better at "alien tennis", as they've begun to call it. Judging by the news Steve gets from the police and military frequencies, that seems to be a common sentiment, and there seems to be more than one contest going on.

It's still no walk in the park, mostly because of the great number of attackers. Reflecting their blasts means that it's not possible to attack them, it's only possible to react. And only one at a time, which makes it a drawn out fight that Steve fears the aliens might win simply because the humans will tire earlier than them. Steve can't see an end to the alien forces yet, they're still arriving in their small ships, and that's not reassuring. Tony announces over the comms that he's trying to find out where they're coming from so that they can either cut them off or eradicate the cause instead of fighting the symptoms. Steve hopes he'll come up with an idea soon, because after hours of fighting, things don't show any sign of turning to their favour. 

It's almost like a déjà-vu when Steve sees the bright light of an energy blast out of the corner of his eye before he feels it hit the side of his head and he goes down because of the strength of the impact.

"STEVE!" Tony's voice sounds panicked, even over the comms. "STEVE! Answer me!"

"I'm fine." Steve responds and suddenly doesn't dislike the monstrosity in his head anymore. He doesn't even have a headache. "Your helmets work perfectly, it seems."

He wonders if he's imagining the shaky breath he hears Tony draw before he replies in his usual, snarky voice, "Of course they work. Do you think Bruce and I would put so much effort into something that doesn't work? We _did_ test these things before we put them on your heads."

"I appreciate that, Stark, considering that we look like total idiots." Clint's peeved voice filters over the comms. "If we're wearing them and they're actually useless, I'll kill you."

"I always love your sincere appreciation of my hard work, Barton." Tony retorts drily. 

"Welcome." Clint says cheerfully. "By the way, I love your racket-shield-thingies. Alien tennis is so much fun! It should become an official sport."

"I agree, Man of Iron." Thor chimes in. "It is one of your most enjoyable inventions."

"And a fantastic workout for the arms and the whole upper body." Sam offers his piece of mind with a cheerfulness that Steve finds slightly inappropriate given the current situation. They're not evaluating a new sport, for crying out loud! They're fighting a _battle_!

"Guys, no chatter on the line. We're not here for fun." He chides them with as much authority as he can muster given that he's currently also playing alien tennis and is actually enjoying it. 

"Awwww, you spoilsport!" Clint complains before the chatter really does die down, apart from regular status reports. 

The turning point of the battle comes surprisingly quickly and is quite anticlimactic. Tony discovers a mother ship that's keeping up the steady supply of aliens, and he figures that if the creatures themselves are very vulnerable to their own weapons, that might be true for their ships, too. Since no human has so far managed to fire any of the alien weapons, Tony has them spread the word to all fighters on the ground to reflect the shots up there instead of the attacking individual aliens. What sounds like a terrible plan works surprisingly well and makes Steve guess that the aliens have never been involved in an intraspecies war. The mother ship reacts very badly to being hit by the blasts, it starts disintegrating and soon is riddled by explosions that make it come down into the Hudson. The aliens themselves seem rather like headless chickens when the mother ship ceases to function, and soon after it comes down they are easily rounded up. 

All in all, Steve is rather satisfied how things went. Of course the victory is accompanied by a considerable loss of life, an inevitable byproduct of every battle, and a great deal of property damage, but things could have been a lot worse. The team coordinates with the police and the military and they get the aliens transported to a prison facility upstate and get the clean-up started. Steve stays until it's obvious that the team is not required on site anymore, then he lets them know that they're supposed to assemble at the waiting quinjet for debriefing before they'll return to the Tower. 

Once they've completed the debriefing and the jet lifts off to bring them to the Tower, Steve allows himself to recall that moment during battle when he was hit by the energy blast. He closes his eyes and leans back in his seat. He can clearly hear Tony's voice, the open and undisguised panic that coloured his every word until Steve had replied to let him know nothing bad had happened. He's absolutely certain he didn't imagine that. On top of that Tony called him 'Steve', which he never does. So why did Tony react like that if he really doesn't want anything to do with Steve, like his behaviour of the past weeks suggests? It doesn't make any sense. Whenever Steve is fine, Tony pushes him away as far as possible. Whenever Steve is - or seems to be - injured, Tony panics and gets protective. The man is a walking contradiction. 

Steve opens one eye and turns his head to unobtrusively glance at Tony. He's sitting next to Bruce, who transformed back quite some time ago and is calm enough to be in deep conversation with Tony about the alien mother ship. He's out of his suit, which is standing in sentry mode at the closed rear hatch of the quinjet. Tony's hands gesture along with his explanations, his face animated and passionate. Steve can't remember Tony ever being so genuinely relaxed with him, and while he likes seeing him like that, it also stings. He's back at square one, wondering again if Tony likes or dislikes him, again tempted to give it another try. He knows in his head that it's probably a bad idea, that Tony will shoot him down like he's done all those times before, but in his belly there's a stubborn spark of hope that makes him feel the urge to go for it anyway. 

When Clint turns the quinjet around to land in the Tower's port, Steve resolves to give it one more try before he'll give up for good and accept that Tony wants no business with him beyond the team's missions. So when Bruce, Thor, Rhodes and Sam have left the jet while Clint and Natasha are in the cockpit running post-flight checks and Tony lags behind fiddling with his suit, Steve sees his window of opportunity. He makes his way through the jet and walks up to him. He can pinpoint the exact moment Tony realises it's him who is approaching because his entire body is suddenly tensing up as if preparing for fight or flight. It makes Steve's skin prickle uneasily that _that's_ the reaction he causes in Tony.

"What do you want, Cap?" Tony's voice is carefully neutral and casual, as if he's completely at ease - which he obviously isn't.

Steve licks is lips nervously and wonders where to start. "Tony, about before, when I got hit-"

"Don't read too much into it, Capsicle." Tony interrupts quickly, dismissively. He obviously knows exactly what Steve is talking about, though, and that somehow encourages Steve to press on. 

"Tony, I heard you shout my-" 

"Gosh, you really don't know when to quit, do you?" Tony never lets him finish his sentence and resolutely talks over him, now annoyed. It seems to be his standard reaction to Steve, next to avoidance. "You were dumb enough to get shot down _again_ , that's what I reacted to. Happy?"

Steve makes sure nothing shows on his face, but damn, it hurts. He doesn't even have a reply, but he doesn't need one because Tony just marches off, the suit following like a dutiful dog.

When he finally enters the common floor, Steve waves off the attempts to get him to join the team's post-battle celebration meal and retreats to his quarters. He feels hurt and raw and doesn't trust his happy face to stay on. He doesn't feel like trying to make it stay on, either. Since he doesn't want to spoil the mood for the others - they deserve their celebration, they did real good today - he'd rather be alone than smack in their middle, where they'd definitely notice that he's not particularly happy. He also doesn't want to answer their inevitable questions about the reason for his grumpiness. 

Steve strips off his suit as soon as he gets into his quarters, then he takes a long, hot shower to wash off the grime and blood as much as the hurt. It works for the first two, but not for the latter. If anything, Steve feels even worse when he gets out of the bathroom. He towels his hair dry and slips into a fresh pair of jeans and a t-shirt, then he sinks down on the edge of the bed, frowning and staring at the wet towel still in his hands. With a sigh he falls backwards until he's flat on his back on the duvet and stares at the ceiling.

How could he have been so wrong? He _saw_ that footage of the Brooklyn Bridge, he _saw_ how Tony reacted to him getting hurt, he _saw_ Tony's gentleness when he took care of Steve, he _heard_ the panic in his voice today, he _heard_ him use Steve's name instead of a nickname. It's not his imagination, it's fact, it's _on tape_. But he can't for the life of him reconcile it with the way Tony behaves towards him in daily life - or just now in the quinjet. They seem to be two different people, and as if the Tony on tape shows things the real Tony doesn't dare to sh-

Suddenly Steve gets an idea how he can find out if he's right or if he's so utterly wrong that he's been making a total fool of himself those past weeks. Tony is the most genuine in his actions when he thinks himself unobserved or when he acts without thinking about who might be watching. There is one place where that might have been the case: The hospital, when Steve was still unconscious. If he understood Natasha correctly, then Tony stayed with him for the entire time he was knocked out, until shortly before Steve woke for real. That in itself is already a sign that Steve can't be entirely wrong, he tries to encourage himself, because we're talking about _three days_ here. Maybe he's lucky and there was a camera in the room.

"JARVIS?" Steve sits up on his bed and looks at the ceiling. He knows JARVIS is not technically in the ceiling, not even in any particular part of the room, but he never quite managed to get rid of the habit.

"Yes, Captain Rogers?"

"Is there footage from my hospital room from the time I arrived there until I left, back when I was knocked out?"

"Yes, Captain, there is."

"Can I see it, please?" Steve can't help holding his breath. He knows perfectly well how protective JARVIS is of Tony, so if anything happened in the time he was unconscious that might in any way cause Tony harm, JARVIS will not grant him access to those recordings.

There's a moment of hesitance before JARVIS answers, as if he had to deliberate about whether to say yes or no. "Your tablet has been given temporary access, Captain."

Steve feels a strange mixture of relief and wary anticipation roll over him. He's oddly sure that he's about to open a can of worms, but the fact that JARVIS lets him is almost reassuring. JARVIS would never do something that might harm Tony.

"Thank you, JARVIS." Steve says earnestly while he gets up to retrieve his tablet from its customary spot in the top right corner of his desk. 

"You're welcome, Captain." JARVIS replies with a note to his voice that Steve can't quite place. He's too unsettled to pay it any closer attention, though, so he lets it slide. He switches on the tablet and leans with his hip against the desk while he waits for the device to boot. As soon as it's running, a screen pops up notifying him that he has been given access to the recording of the security camera in his hospital room. There are ninety-three hours and forty-eight minutes of it, meaning that JARVIS really gave him access to _all_ of it, right until Steve was discharged.

Steve presses play and the recording starts to reveal an empty room. The door opens and Steve is wheeled in, lying stretched out on the bed under the starched sheets, wearing a hospital gown. Two nurses position his bed in its assigned spot and hook it and Steve up to some machines. They obviously know that they can't do much more than keep him under observation, even an IV would not work on him due to the serum. They leave the room soon afterwards and it only takes a few minutes before Tony slips in, his movements clipped with tension. He's not wearing the suit anymore, but Steve can tell that he's in the gear he usually wears underneath it in a fight. There's the bruise above his right eyebrow that Steve remembers from when he woke, but it's still bloody and there's no butterfly bandage covering it yet. Tony obviously came to Steve before he even got treated for his own injuries, probably flew him straight to the hospital and left the suit on sentry duty somewhere close by. 

Tony approaches the bed with quick steps, then his hand reaches out to press to Steve's pulse point again, never mind that he's hooked to a surveillance monitor that clearly shows all his vital signs. Tony's hand lingers, turns from two finger pressing to Steve's neck into a hand cupping his jaw. Tony's shoulders sag after a moment, then he lets go of Steve to pull the plastic chair from the corner of the room next to the bed. He sits down, and after a moment of hesitation he pushes his hand under Steve's that's resting on the white sheets. Tony's fingers slowly curl around Steve's and his thumb gently traces a mindless pattern on the back of his hand. He never says a word.

Steve is just staring at his tablet, wondering if he's really seeing what he's seeing. This has nothing to do with how Tony normally behaves towards him. It's caring, it's gentle, it's concerned, it's _genuine_. Tony was never comfortable with being physically close to Steve, the only exception is giving him a lift in battle. That he'd voluntary touch Steve, that he'd want to hold his hand is something Steve never expected.

For a long time Tony just sits there, his hand carefully holding Steve's, not moving beyond the slow caress of his thumb. Steve jumps ahead in the recording, slowly pulling the lever to pinpoint via the preview if something happens that he wants to see in greater detail. That becomes the case when he spots the door opening and someone coming in, so he returns to the beginning of the sequence. A woman elegantly slips into the room, carrying a paper bag in her hands. It takes Steve a moment to recognise her as Pepper. She approaches Tony with slow but confident movements, as if she's totally comfortable around him. She sets the paper bag onto the beside table, then she leans down and places her arms around Tony's shoulders where he's still sitting on the plastic chair, holding Steve's hand. She quietly talks to him, so low that the microphones don't catch what she's saying, but Tony leans into her embrace, closes his eyes and nods slowly when she's done talking. Pepper kisses him on the cheek, then she gets up and leaves the room. 

Although it seems familiar and intimate, Steve can tell that it's deep friendship he just witnessed, not two lovers interacting. They obviously still care deeply for each other even after the breakdown of their couple relationship, and Steve is glad that Tony still has a trusted friend in Pepper, that he didn't lose that along with their relationship. It's no secret how much she means to him, and Steve is grateful that that feeling is obviously mutual. 

A few minutes after Pepper is gone, Tony gets up and lets go of Steve's a hand, but not before giving it a squeeze and murmuring, "Don't go anywhere, I'll be right back."

Steve watches how he takes the paper bag and disappears into the en-suite, only to emerge a few minutes later. He obviously washed up and changed into the clean clothes that Pepper brought. The dried blood is gone from the cut above his eyebrow, but a fresh trail is already visible. It's perfect timing when a middle aged nurse comes in carrying a tray with supplies and declares that she was tasked by Miss Potts to patch him up and not to take no for an answer. Of course Tony argues, but he quickly realises that the nurse will not give in, so he sits down and lets her check him for injuries, clean the cut and put a butterfly bandage over it. His grumbling and complaining pearls off the nurse as if it's not there, and Steve is sure she has heard much worse in her time. She leaves after barely twenty minutes and Tony visibly relaxes once she's gone, settling back into the chair and taking Steve's hand again, this time not hesitating at all. 

When nothing much happens for a while, Steve begins skipping through the recoding again. It's at approximately three hours that the door opens again, and Tony lets go of Steve's hand as if burnt and jumps out of the chair. Steve frowns at his reaction, then he sees Sam walk in, followed by Natasha, Thor, Bruce, Rhodes and Clint. They look like they're fresh from the battlefield, and Steve assumes that's probably the case. Tony obviously didn't stay for the aftermath and the clean-up when the creatures retreated, he must have brought Steve to the hospital right away while the rest of the team took care of things. 

Tony drifts back, away from the bed and Steve when the others come closer. He's smiling and talking, but Steve sees the tension in his frame again, the same tension that he just now notices is always there. He only knows it now because he saw Tony let go of it when he was alone in the room with Steve, holding his hand. It's an oddly uncomfortable realisation that Tony never really relaxes around them, that he's always on alert even with the team. It's not supposed to be that way.

They don't stay long, and Steve gathers from their conversation that they're heading back to the Tower to clean up, then they're requested to the ubiquitous debriefing. Tony just nods along, but Steve can tell that he's not even considering going to that debriefing. He's pretty sure the others know that, too, but nobody mentions it. They leave soon afterwards, but it takes some time before Tony finds his way back to Steve's side again. Night has long since fallen, the artificial light of the room too bright and cold. Tony switches it off and turns on the small reading lamp on the bedside table before he finally sits back down. He takes of his jacket and hangs it over the back of the chair, then he slowly reaches out again to take hold of Steve's hand. It's as if he can't keep away, as if he needs the physical contact to make sure that Steve is still warm, still alive. Steve feels goosebumps spread down his arms just from watching. There's something utterly humbling about being the object of such genuine concern. 

At some point Tony slumps over and Steve can tell that he fell asleep. In all honesty, he's surprised Tony stayed awake as long as he did, considering the strains of the day. He must have been exhausted after that battle, and the adrenaline has definitely left his system a long time ago. Steve skips ahead, and for a few hours the video shows nothing but Tony's slumped form, his hand never letting go of Steve's while he's sleeping. At some point Natasha comes it, absolutely quiet, and neither Steve nor Tony wake. She stays for a few minutes, then she leaves as silently as she came in. Steve is sure he sees a smile on her lips when she closes the door behind her.

Steve takes the tablet over to his bed, sits down and leans against the headboard. He skims the next few hours of the recording, watching how Tony sleeps restlessly while Steve remains absolutely motionless in the stark white sheets. Tony wakes a few times with a start as if he had a nightmare, and more than once he gets up to touch his fingers to Steve's pulse point, always on his neck, never his wrist, as if that is not enough. The light in the room changes, the morning comes and with it the activity of the day. Steve skims most of it. Nothing much changes, only that Happy comes by and brings Tony a few things, then Tony settles next to Steve and works on something. He only leaves the room to go to the toilet, otherwise he's always there. A young male nurse comes by during lunch and dinner times with a tray of food that is definitely not hospital food, but otherwise the day is calm. The team visit again, this time separately, and after lunch Rhodes stays for an hour or two and keeps Tony company. They don't talk about anything important, just updates about the proceedings in the aftermath of the attack and some of their typical banter. Tony is relaxed again and Steve begins to notice a pattern in his behaviour.

Steve skims over the footage of the evening, which mostly shows Tony sitting next to Steve and working on his tablet. Occasionally he reaches out to almost unconsciously take Steve's hand, only letting go when he needs both hands for his work. The night is a repeat of the previous one, with Tony falling asleep half on the chair and half on the bed, the tablet forgotten next to his head on the mattress. Again he wakes more or less regularly, again he checks the pulse point at Steve's neck. The next day is not much different from the previous one, as far as Steve can tell from the footage he skims. There is the male nurse with Tony's special order meals, there is the team coming by, all of them at different points throughout the day. Nobody makes any remarks about Tony being in the room every time they come by to visit Steve.

In the afternoon Bruce brings a few tablets and a holoscreen and involves Tony in the research he's doing on the damaged alien ship they managed to recover. It's the only piece of equipment they found, all the other gear was somehow recalled and taken with them when they left. They didn't show the same attention to their fallen comrades, though. Tony lets himself be pulled into their discussion, and Steve is amazed to see the tension leave his shoulders to be replaced by animated passion.

After dinner Tony and Steve are left alone. At some point Tony puts aside the tablet he's working with. He leans forward and passes his hands over his face, then he massages the bridge of his nose with a pained expression on his face. He turns to look at Steve's unmoving form and lets out a deep breath, runs his hand through his own hair, almost pulling. He seems utterly weary and radiates something between despair and helplessness. He remains seated for a moment longer, then Tony slowly gets up and stands next to Steve's bed. His right hand returns to its usual place wrapped around Steve's, then Tony bends down and presses his lips to Steve's forehead, his left hand gently cupping Steve's jaw. 

"Please, Steve, wake up." Tony whispers against Steve's forehead, his voice so rough and so quiet that the microphone barely catches it. He remains in the same position for a long moment, then he moves to rest his forehead against Steve's. "Please, Steve, don't leave me. I know I've been a jerk, but please, give me the chance to make up for it."

Steve feels goosebumps spread out all over his body, cold and hot at the same time. Tony _never_ calls him Steve. He can't remember a single time he did, apart from today when he thought Steve injured. It's always 'Rogers' or 'Cap' or some other nickname he came up with, but never just 'Steve'. Yet here Tony's voice is so openly emotional, caring and desperate when he calls him by his name, he's not hiding a thing. No wall of sarcasm, no jokes, no deflecting, no mask. Steve is transfixed, he can't stop staring at the screen, at Tony's hunched body that radiates pain, worry, fear even. Fear that Steve might not wake up again. It's been over two days at that point without Steve showing any sign of regaining consciousness, and it shows in Tony's every gesture how much that is affecting him.

Suddenly Steve _understands_ , and it feels like somebody emptied a scalding hot bucket of water over his head, its tendrils making their way down his back, his arms, his legs, right down to his toes and fingertips. His entire skin in covered in goosebumps.

Tony _loves_ him. Not just like a friend, a comrade or even a brother, not like the rest of the team. No, like he had once loved Pepper. He doesn't just love Steve, he's _in love_ with him, too. 

Steve stops the video, he suddenly feels unable to keep watching. He puts the tablet down in his lap because his hands are shaking. He never knew, never had even the faintest idea about what Tony feels for him. To the contrary, up until an hour ago he'd believed Tony's deflection, had been convinced that Tony didn't even like him... Damn, Tony's masks are really incredibly efficient.

Steve passes his hands over his face and tries to calm his racing heart. He feels like he's going to have an asthma attack, and it's only the knowledge that the serum prevents that that keeps him from hyperventilating. Tony is in love with him. Wants him. Doesn't dislike him. Oh God, knowing that changes everything. What now? He can't just go on as if he doesn't know. But Tony doesn't know he knows. If Steve approaches him - again - then Tony will throw up his shields and shoot Steve down as hard as he can, so what should he do?

Steve lets his hands fall ways from his face and takes a deep breath. All right, so first he should probably finish watching the recording. It takes another minutes before Steve manages to steady his hands enough that he dares to take up the tablet and press play. Tony is still leaning over Steve's unconscious body in the hospital room, his forehead resting against Steve's. He scrunches his eyes shut as if to hold back tears, then he straightens and takes a deep breath. 

"I'll be right back." Tony says in a voice that is definitely shaking, then he disappears into the en-suite. It takes almost ten minutes before he comes out again, and Steve can tell that he's washed his face because the collar of his shirt and the hair at his forehead are wet. It doesn't do anything to hide the red rims around his eyes.

Tony seems to have regained his composure, though. He sits down next to Steve again, takes up his tablet and goes back to work. He keeps it up for a hour or so, then he falls asleep, again resting with his head on the mattress beside Steve, his neck at the same uncomfortable looking angle, his fingers interlinked with Steve's. Steve moves the lever to skim over the next few hours until he sees himself wake up, the first time he moved in that hospital bed since arriving three days earlier. It lasts only about two minutes, then he's out again. It all happens without Tony ever waking up, which obviously means that Tony isn't aware that Steve knows he was there. Or that Natasha told Steve about _how long_ he'd been there. Which, knowing Natasha, she's done not only on purpose, but also with a goal in mind.

Talking about Natasha, she comes into the room about an hour after Tony woke up again, the warm rays of the early morning sun lighting up the room. She enters and closes the door behind her so quietly that Tony only notices her when she's standing next to him. It's way too late to let go of Steve's hand and pretend nothing is going on, and Tony obviously knows that. He doesn't even bother to untangle his fingers from Steve's. 

"The docs say his brain activity has almost returned to normal." Natasha finally says into the quiet, her voice even, as if she's not surprised at all about Tony holding Steve's hand and what it implies. She most likely isn't. 

"So he's going to wake up soon." Tony's voice is carefully neutral.

She nods. "So they think, yes."

"Time for me to go, then." Tony obviously tries to go for casual, but Steve can hear the reluctance and the regret in his voice.

"Or stay." Natasha says quietly and gently jerks her chin at Steve. "You should tell him." 

"Yeah, sure. That's going to go down well." Tony's voice is sharp, but Steve can tell it's not directed at Natasha, but at Tony himself.

"It actually might." She replies with a hint of challenge to her voice.

"No, it won't. He's not interested in me that way. Heck, he doesn't even _like_ me! We're talking about Captain America here, America's perfect poster boy, who's not going to affiliate with the dirty weapons manufacturer Tony Stark any more than absolutely necessary." The self-deprecating tone in Tony's voice makes Steve flinch, even watching it weeks after the words were said. 

"Actually, we're talking about _Steve_ here." Natasha says pointedly. "And I know you know that there's a difference."

Tony's silence is as much acknowledgement as he's going to give her. "Still. It's better this way. For him and for me."

Natasha snorts, obviously not agreeing with Tony's assessment. "You don't even give him the chance to choose, you just decide for both of you and that's that."

"He doesn't even know there _is_ anything to choose or decide, Nat, which kind of proves my point. And I want it to stay that way. There's no need to unsettle the fragile balance we have achieved." Tony's voice sounds final, he definitely has made up his mind. 

"Tony, you've been in love with him _for years_ and now that-"

"Stay with him, okay? He should have a friendly face to wake up to." Tony interrupts and gets up from the chair. He lets go of Steve's hand, gently placing in on top of the sheets, passing his fingers over the back before stepping away.

" _Tony_ -"

"No, Nat." Tony raises his hand in a gesture that's determined as much as it is oddly defensive. "Leave it be."

He throws Steve on last glance and then turns and leaves the room. Natasha's gaze follows him and she gives an uncharacteristically frustrated sigh that's pretty much a grumble when the door falls shut behind Tony. "Idiot."

Nevertheless, she does what Tony asked and stays until Steve wakes. It's then that Steve stops the recoding. He knows what happened afterwards. Instead of 'trying to make it up to Steve', as Tony had called it, he'd pulled back as fast and as far as possible as soon as Steve woke up. In his desperate attempt not to unsettle the fragile balance, Tony had actually dismantled it himself until there's no balance left, as is the case now. The more Steve thinks about it, the clearer the picture becomes and all of Tony's actions following the hospital suddenly make sense.

Tony is in love with him and has been for years, as Natasha so helpfully pointed out. Which is why Tony has always made sure to never let Steve come to close to him for fear of his secret getting out. Then Steve is - for the first time since receiving the serum - seriously injured to the point that it's uncertain whether he'll make it, and that made Tony realise what he has to lose. So he stays with Steve in the hospital, but as soon as it's certain that Steve will recover, he pulls back again. He even goes so far as to push Steve away with all his might once he's back on his feet, more than he ever did before. 

Steve decides that he has to hit Tony over the head with what he knows now or they'll never get anywhere. Tony is clearly doing his best to keep Steve at arm's length and he'll deflect anything subtle Steve might try. He'll put up his shield of sarcasm and push Steve as far away as he possibly can without causing outright conflict, just like he has done those past weeks. Only now Steve understands _why_ he's doing it. 

Tony is scared. Scared of being rejected, of being vulnerable, of giving Steve the power to hurt him. He _expects_ Steve to hurt him, and that almost makes Steve sick. What image does Tony have of him that he thinks him so cruel? Whatever it is, it motivates Tony to make sure that there's no opportunity for Steve to do so.

That means that it's up to Steve to prove him wrong. He expects it to be a fine line between pushing Tony and at the same time reassuring him that he has nothing to fear from Steve. How he's supposed to do that is a mystery to Steve. It's not like he's very experienced with relationships. He's not the best at talking about feelings, either. Neither is Tony.

Thinking of it that way, it actually spells catastrophe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And while I hate to beg, but please feed my poor author's soul with a wee comment? I really love to hear what you think about where this is going! Comments are the best drugs ever! ^_^


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it comes: Steve finally gets to meet Tony... I know you've all been waiting for it! Now go and enjoy! ^_^ Let me know what you think if you feel like it! ^^
> 
> And thank you so much to the lovely readers who left me comments on the last chapter - they made my day after I was turning into a sad wee cookie that worried that maybe people didn't like the fic enough to leave me a word *hands out homemade chocolate biscuits* :D

Steve resolves that the only real option he has is to corner Tony somewhere private and confront him with his newfound knowledge. Given his recent experiences, he's sure that Tony will most likely not give him the time he needs to explain things, so Steve needs to get his foot in the door by shocking Tony enough to get a word in. It's probably not the best approach, but it's the only thing Steve can come up with apart from handcuffing Tony to the nearest piece of furniture to keep him from escaping. That sounds like an even worse idea, so he scraps it immediately.

Of course, it's not that easy. Making a plan and realising a plan are two different steps in the same processes, and the second step is far more difficult to achieve than the first. While Steve technically knows that, it doesn't ease his frustration. Because Tony is at the height of his disappearing act, which now includes ignoring briefings. Since he's not out of the loop whenever they're out on missions, Steve suspects he's listening in via JARVIS. That doesn't make it any easier to get hold of him, though. Tony is barricaded in his workshop, to which only Bruce, Rhodes and Natasha are allowed access, but pretty much nobody else. Steve begins to wonder if he's imagining the regretful and almost apologetic tone in JARVIS' voice when he refuses him entrance for the umpteenth time.

The team's social life is not dead, despite the weird standoff between Tony and Steve. There are regular team and movie nights. Steve makes sure not to attend all of them because he knows that Tony joins them only when he's sure that Steve is not going to be there. Steve always comes up with something that means he's entirely out of the Tower, so that Tony feels he can show up without risking to run into Steve. That's how Steve comes to spend a lot of time in museums all over the city, sometimes he goes to the movies, sometimes he just walks around the city, watching the people and wondering how it can be that he still feels disconnected from them, even after years of being in this century. Other times he visits his old gym and enjoys disappearing in the crowd of the other men there, just a face among many.

It's on one of those team nights when Steve went out instead of joining, that he involuntarily stumbles into the thick of the party, so to speak, when he returns home. The entire team is there, standing together in a circle talking when Steve alights the elevator to head for his quarters. He had expected them to sit in the living room watching a movie as they had planned, which would have allowed him to sneak past them into his quarters without upsetting Tony. Instead, Steve ends up smack in the middle of the group when he steps out of the elevator.

"Friend Steve, you join us after all!" Thor booms delightedly and lifts his hand to slap Steve on the shoulder. Steve is completely unprepared for the force behind the slap and in a kind of reversed repeat of the team night about a month ago, Thor practically slams Steve into Tony with his jovial greeting. Seriously, this can't be coincidence, Steve can't help thinking while he catches himself with both hands on Tony's shoulders before he can fall flat on his face. Thor usually knows his strength better than that, even when he's especially enthusiastic. 

Tony stiffens at the contact and pushes hard against Steve, who lets go of him immediately. 

"Keep your hands to yourself, Rogers." Tony snarls before he turns around and leaves the room at a pointedly unhurried pace. Steve stares after him and is kind of relieved that he's not the only one. At least that reassures him that he wasn't out of line, that he didn't do something wrong. He still feels the urge to get away from the others, so he makes a hasty excuse before retreating to his quarters. 

Damn! No matter what he does, he only ever seems to annoy or upset Tony. That's not the right way to get him to talk to Steve, that's for sure. Not that Steve is any closer to actually getting Tony in the same room so that he _can_ talk to him. A scared Tony is obviously a dangerous Tony, because if Steve learned one thing over the past weeks, than that Tony won't hesitate to lash out at him if he comes too close in any way, be it physical or verbal. A scared Tony is also a very creative Tony, because he's become so good at avoiding Steve that he has pretty much made it an art form. 

It doesn't keep Steve from trying again and again, though. Now that he _knows_ \- not just assumes, but actually _knows_ \- that Tony is in love with him, that all his attitude is an act born out of fear, Steve feels like he can take whatever Tony throws at him until he finally manages to make Tony believe that he doesn't need any defences against Steve. That Steve is just as much in love with him and will never ever hurt Tony on purpose. Now he only has to get the chance to tell Tony that. It's the reason why he goes to the workshop every day and tries to get Tony to talk to him. And every day again JARVIS sends him away for one reason or another, but they all mean the same thing: Tony doesn't _want_ to talk to Steve.

When Steve arrives at the workshop the day after the unfortunate incident of Thor slamming him into Tony, he's surprised to find the door to the workshop ajar. He can hear Tony's voice from inside, and it sounds like he's talking to DUM-E, who is chirping here and there to what Tony is saying. Steve doesn't question his luck and slips into the workshop - this is _it_ , his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The workshop is one of the best places to get Tony alone and undisturbed, which is exactly what Steve needs for this conversations. He certainly doesn't want any spectators, not only because it might turn ugly, but also because Tony will never be honest, will never allow Steve even a step closer if there are any witnesses. 

It's not the first time Steve is in Tony's workshop, but it sure feels like it. Steve can't help his gaze flickering around the massive space, stopping on a piece of armour here and an unidentifiable machine there, fascinated by the strangely organised chaos that seems like a reflection of Tony's mind. Steve has always liked the workshop, and he can't help being pulled into its atmosphere again. He'd love to sit here and draw, there's so much to see...

"What the hell are you doing in here, Rogers?!" Tony's angry shout pulls him out of his musing rather effectively. Tony is kneeling on the ground in front of a part of his armour, wearing dirty jeans, a black tank top, welding gloves and a welding helmet with the visor raised as he's glaring at Steve. Steve can't stop himself from thinking that he looks absolutely delicious with his tousled hair and the black streaks on his face and arms. 

"I didn't give you clearance! You have no right to be in here!" Tony is getting up from the ground, but he's not setting the still burning torch aside.

Steve realises that he has to make his point quickly or his window of opportunity will have closed. "Tony-"

"Get out, Rogers! Get out _right now_ or I promise you that we will find out how well the serum deals with a lit blow torch!" 

Oh yes, a scared Tony is a dangerous Tony. Steve doesn't doubt for a moment that Tony will make good on his threat, although he'll probably go for a non-vital part of Steve's body. Steve quickly raises his hands in a gesture that is equally non-threatening as it's supposed to be appeasing. "Tony, I saw-" 

"I don't care what you saw! Out!" Tony has the blow torch raised and the flame is pointing at Steve, then it suddenly dies out. Steve's gaze flickers behind Tony where DUM-E is fiddling with the valve of the tank.

"What the-" Tony growls at the blow torch, then he turns to look at the tank and sees DUM-E quickly rolling away from it. "DUMMY! What the heck do you think you're doing?"

Since DUM-E kind of saved his life, Steve feels compelled to intervene and direct Tony's wrath away from the bot and towards himself. "Tony, I really have to talk to you because-"

"I _don't want_ to talk to you, Rogers!" Tony throws the extinguished blow torch aside, followed by the helmet and the gloves. "Seriously, how many more hints do you need? I thought I was pretty damn clear on that matter!"

" _Tony! I saw the footage from the hospital!_ " Steve presses out before Tony can talk over him again.

Tony's reaction to his words is immediate. He freezes on the spot, eyes wide, and he doesn't even seem to be breathing. He's also unnaturally pale all of the sudden and for once Steve can read in his eyes: Plain out fear and the resignation to the blows he expects to be dealt. It's as if he knows he's trapped in a corner that he can't get out of, and the only option he has left is to take what's coming and then piece himself back together afterwards. It pains Steve that Tony thinks of him like that, sees him as a threat, something he'll just have to get through because it'll crush him no matter what, without mercy.

Maybe it'll help if Tony knows, _understands_ , that he holds the exact same power over Steve. Steve's heart is pounding and his hands feel shaky and sweaty in a way he hasn't experienced since receiving the serum. He has to lick his utterly dry lips before he can talk. "I get it, Tony. I do."

"How did you get access to those recording?" Tony's voice is shaking ever so slightly, but he's obviously trying to stifle it.

"I asked JARVIS." Steve replies slightly bemused, because shouldn't Tony know that?

Tony just glares at the ceiling. "Traitor."

Curiously, JARVIS remains silent. 

"Tony, will you give me the chance to talk to you? Please?" Steve allows his nervousness to show, hoping that it might sway Tony to listen to him. 

"What exactly did you see?" Tony's voice is a strange mixture of resigned and anxious.

"Everything." Steve answers honestly. "I know you brought me to the hospital and that you stayed with me for the entire time, right until before I woke up. I know you slept in that chair next to me every night. I know you didn't let go of my hand."

Tony grits his teeth, but for once doesn't interrupt him, so Steve continues. "I saw how you kissed me on the forehead and asked me not to leave you, to give you another chance. I know you asked Nat to stay with me before you left."

Tony swallows heavily. Obviously he remembers his conversation with Natasha in close detail.

"I know you didn't want me to know all that." Steve's voice is very quiet now and he has to swallow against the lump in his throat because he's oddly scared of what he has to say next. "I know you're in lo-"

"Enough!" Tony cuts him short before he can say it, before he can add that he's in love with Tony, too. Instead Tony is frowning, but he seems hurt more than angry.

"Enough, Steve. You've made your point." Tony sounds miserable, and that's not at all what Steve wanted. "I know I overstepped my boundaries, I shouldn't have touched you like that without you being able to say no. You're not into this, into me. Fine, I get it, but really, you don't have to rub it in."

"I'm not... I didn't mean to..." Steve doesn't have the words to make it unmistakably clear that that's _not_ what he meant to make Tony think, _not at all_. "Tony, the thought of losing you scares me to death. I would have reacted no different had our roles been reversed."

He expected many reactions, but not a sarcastic snort followed by, "Yeah, nice joke, Rogers. Haha." 

For a few seconds Steve can just stare at Tony, completely taken aback by his reaction. "I'm not joking, Tony."

"I almost would have believed that." The sarcasm is still strong in his voice.

"Tony, I _mean_ it. I'm in love with you, too." There, he said it! Steve is almost proud of himself for finally finding the courage to tell Tony. 

Instead of accepting his confession, Tony just laughs. It's a bitter sound. "Really, Rogers, you can drop the act. It's not very convincing, either. How did you ever make it as an actor, anyway? They didn't have high standards back then, did they?"

"Why won't you believe me?" Steve wants to hit something in frustration. He feels so hurt, so helpless, knowing that no matter what he says, Tony won't believe it, won't accept it as genuine. 

"Why should I? You never show any sign of interest, and suddenly you barge in here and declare your undying love?" Tony snorts derisively. "Please forgive me if I don't quite believe that. It's a bit too much like a really bad romcom. Although I do have to admit that I don't quite understand what you're trying to achieve with this farce. Wait, did you get hit on the head again?" 

Steve almost feels his throat close up with hurt. "It's not a farce!" 

"Yeah, sure. Now get out of my workshop before I have JARVIS taser you!" Tony walks towards him and begins to rather bodily manoeuvre Steve towards the door. Steve lets himself be pushed backwards because he's on one side too shaken to stand up to Tony and on the other side so angry that he fears what he'll do if he gives into it.

"I will prove to you that I mean it!" Steve promises when he's pushed over the threshold of the workshop's doorway. He feels like he's talking to a wall.

"Do your worst!" With those words Tony slams the door in his face.

For a long time Steve just stares at the door, shivering with the helpless anger he feels eating him up. He needs to get it out of his system or he will explode. Steve turns on his heel and stalks off to the gym, where he heads straight for the punching bag. He goes at it mercilessly, without changing out of his street clothes, without wrapping his hands. He just pummels the bag until the first rips show in the fabric and his hands are bloody. The anger is gone, suddenly he only feels empty. Steve holds onto the punching bag to stop it swinging, smearing even more of his blood over the fabric, then he slowly walks over to the benches lining the side of the gym and sinks down on the closest one. What can he possibly do to convince Tony that he's serious about him?

"Didn't go too well, did it?" A quiet voice asks from somewhere above him. Steve glances up to see Rhodes standing in front of him, wearing gym clothes and a towel around his neck and holding out a bottle of water.

"You could say that." Steve mumbles under his breath. He gratefully accepts the water bottle and drinks half of it in one go. "How did you know I talked to Tony?"

"Only Tony can make people that mad. It's a special skill of his." Rhodes replies immediately, as if he's been on the receiving end of said skill before. "And since there's obviously been some kind of issue between the two of you recently, it wasn't too much of a stretch."

Rhodes turns around and sits down on the bench next to Steve. "So, what did you try to talk to him about, if you don't mind me asking?"

For a second or two Steve contemplates not telling him, but then the helpless anger raises its head again and Steve is overcome by a kind of screw-everything attitude that makes him answer rather frankly. "I tried to let him know that I'm just as much in love with him as he is with me. He called me a bad actor and threatened to have JARVIS taser me before he threw me out of the workshop."

Rhodes whistles through his teeth. "Ouch."

"Yeah, ouch." For a long time, they're just silent while Steve empties the bottle. 

"He's been burnt too many times, Steve." Rhodes says finally, voice laced with regret and sadness. "Tony really and truly doesn't believe that somebody can love him just for himself, not his name or his money or his skills. Even Pepper and I sometimes don't manage to convince him, especially when he's in a bad place."

Steve closes his eyes and lets his head fall back until it's resting against the wall. "If the two of you don't manage, how am _I_ supposed to?"

"I wish I had an easy answer for you, but I don't. Time and persistence, that's the only two things I can think of." Rhodes suddenly chuckles. "Oh, and not taking his bullshit."

Steve involuntarily smirks. "I can do that. I think I have been doing that all along."

"True. Which is why you at least stand a chance that he might believe you at some point. You were never after his money, and his name and power never particularly impressed you. At least that's one thing he doesn't fear with you." Rhodes' chuckle takes on a dark edge. "Well, there are enough other issues to choose from."

"What do you mean?" Steve asks, although he has a pretty good idea what Rhodes is talking about. 

"Tony has enough issues to sink a helicarrier, Steve." Rhodes gaze is steely. "You better know that before you go after him, then find out it's too much for you and drop him like a hot potato."

"Not going to happen, Rhodes." Steve holds his gaze easily because he means it. Then he smirks. "I'm stubborn like that."

"I know." Rhodes replies, obviously satisfied with Steve's answer. "I think you and Tony deserve each other."

Steve glances at him quizzically. "Was that a compliment or an insult?"

Rhodes just smirks. "I'll leave that up to you."

"Thank you." Steve replies with a chuckle, then they fall silent again.

"Don't give up on him, Steve." Rhodes' voice is quiet and earnest. "I know he's a tough nut to crack, but once you get through to him, he's worth all your effort."

Steve just sighs. "I hope he'll actually let me crack his shell. I'm not so sure about that right now."

"He tends to lash out rather harshly when he's scared or hurt." Rhodes explains, and Steve wonders how much of it is personal experience. "Don't let it scare you away. It's a sign that you actually mean a lot to him."

"Is that why you're giving me advice instead of telling me off?" Steve can't help asking. 

Rhodes inclines his head in agreement. "Partly." 

"What's the other part?"

"Honestly? I think you're good for him. He's just standing in his own way, so it's my job to help him out." Rhodes replies frankly and his open approval makes Steve feel a lot better. It's hard enough having to fight against Tony's preconceived opinion, it would be so much worse if he had to take on those of Tony's friends, too. 

"Thanks." Steve slowly nods at Rhodes. "I won't give up on him." 

"Good. That's what I want to hear."


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo, I have to go on a wee trip (rather spontaneously), which means that I have to speed up my posting process or you'll have to wait for the last two chapters til next week. I guess you all prefer the quicker posting instead of the waiting period, so here's the next chapter and more will come tonight. I hope you enjoy the approximately 9.000 words of this chapter (yep, a lot is happening) ^_^

_"Do your worst."_

Steve decides to take Tony's parting words as a challenge that he'll live up to. He's sure Tony didn't mean it that way, but he said it, so he'll have to live with the consequences. Steve always performs best when given a challenge, and Tony knows that.

At first Steve doesn't quite know what to do. After his talk with Rhodes, he takes a shower and changes into clean clothes before he returns to the punching bag he so thoroughly mistreated, and cleans off his blood because that's just good manners. He's not the only one training here, after all. It's a nicely repetitive task that allows him to let his thoughts wander. Of course they're constantly returning to the situation at hand: What can he do to prove to Tony that he loves him just for who he is, quirks and all? It seems like an impossible task. Rhodes was right when he said that Tony has enough issues to sink a helicarrier, after all. Steve thought he'd known that before his disastrous talk with Tony, but he realises now that he didn't know the half of it. And still doesn't.

He completely underestimated how little Tony thinks of himself. His veneer of arrogance, confidence and narcissism, not to mention the seemingly endless ego, shields his true vulnerability and self-loathing so perfectly that Steve never quite grasped their extend. He's sure that he still doesn't really get it. If this encounter with Tony taught him one thing, than that he shouldn't assume that he truly knows or understands Tony - he only knows what Tony _wants_ him to know, which is probably why he reacted so badly to the involuntary sharing of his true feelings through the video footage. Maybe that's already a very important lesson Steve had to learn before he's ready to actually enter a relationship with Tony. With Tony, nothing is black and white, it's all different shades of grey. Steve knows he has to let go of his black and white way of seeing things, it doesn't work in today's world anymore. And with Tony it works even less. Maybe Steve will also have to learn a thing or two, not just Tony.

It's when Steve is in the common kitchen, making himself a coffee, that he gets an idea where he can start with his mission to convince Tony. He'll start with something small, like leaving Tony cups of freshly brewed coffee. He asks JARVIS for help, because he can't do it himself - he's not allowed into the workshop, after all. So it comes that Steve leaves steaming hot cups of coffee at the door to the workshop and DUM-E gets them once Steve is gone and places them where Tony finds them. Steve even buys two Avengers thermal cups so that the coffee remains hot, one with Iron Man's helmet and one with Steve's shield. Steve has no idea if Tony figures out what is going on, but the cups always return to the common kitchen where Steve can fill them again. That might be JARVIS' and DUM-E's doing, though. Tony has never been known to clean up after himself, especially coffee cups in the workshop tend to grow a life of their own. Literally. DUM-E likes cleaning up, though, JARVIS told Steve once. So, who knows? It's working, that's what matters.

Tony is still avoiding Steve, though, that makes things difficult and a direct approach impossible. Team nights follow the old patters with Tony only showing up when he's sure that Steve is gone, and during missions the contact is strictly limited to professional exchanges. Steve tries once or twice to engage Tony in a conversation, but he's resolutely blocked. It's quite frustrating.

When it's been two weeks without any kind of progress, Steve decides to take some time off, away from the world, to just think things through and form a plan. And because he needs to clear his head in order to do that, Steve gets his small metal pencil case and his current sketchbook and heads to the roof terrace that is reserved just for the inhabitants of the Tower, meaning the Avengers. It's a really nice terrace, too, with flowers, large patches of grass, shrubs and even several trees. The landscaping is fantastic and Steve has no qualms admitting that if the perks of being a hero mean something like this, he'll take it any time. Tranquillity, peace and privacy are a precious gift that he won't refuse if he doesn't have to.

Steve has always found his mind to work through problems best when he's bent over a piece of paper with a pencil in his hand, not especially focussing on what his hand is doing, just letting it go with the flow. It's exactly what he intends to do for the rest of the afternoon, so he walks over to his favourite tree and sits underneath it. He takes off his shoes to dig his toes into the grass, then he leans with his back against the trunk, opens his sketchbook to an empty page and takes up a medium pencil. It feels as if it has a mind of its own and just know where it wants to go, and Steve lets it. He gets lost in the soft scratch of the graphite tip on the thick paper, in the easy motions of his wrist and fingers, the feeling of the uneven paper underneath his hand. When he finishes the first drawing he turns the page and starts a new one without really looking at what he just finished. He's in the flow and he enjoys it too much to break the spell.

The sun is lowering and the last warm rays are caressing Steve's face when he comes out of his zone. It always feels a bit like waking up from a dream, just that he remembers everything that happened. He sets the sketchbook down on the grass next to him, takes the paper towel and the water bottle he brought with him and cleans his hands off the graphite. Then he drinks the rest of the water, because he completely forgot to drink when he was drawing and suddenly he's terribly thirsty. 

Once the bottle is empty, Steve takes up the sketchbook to look at what he produced. The first drawing shows the interior of the workshop, just like it was when he sneaked in to talk to Tony. There's the piece of Tony's armour, there's the unidentifiable machine, there's DUM-E, there's Tony in the process of welding something on his other armour. Despite the wide angle it's a fairly detailed sketch, and Steve likes how his fascination for the workshop shimmers through. He turns the page to look at the next drawing. It's Tony in his welding gloves and helmet, one hand at the visor he's just raising, looking straight at the viewer with an expression of determination and a touch of anger on his face. He looks fierce, a streak of black grease on his cheekbone and several more on his neck, shoulders and arms where the tank top leaves them bare. Steve loves that look on him and he can't help smiling at sketch-Tony who is more or less glaring at him. The third drawing is a quick sketch of DUM-E as he's fiddling with the valve of the blow torch tank.

Steve begins leafing through the other pages of his sketchbook. It's a little over halfway filled, a book of simple binding, but with nice thick paper and protective hard covers of plain black colour. He likes those simple books because they are of high quality without showing it on the outside. It's the interior that matters. And now that he's looking through it, he can't help noticing that said interior is sporting many drawings that are either showing Tony directly or something associated with him. There are several perspectives of the Tower, seen from below from the street, a view out of a quinjet approaching it, the Manhattan skyline with the Tower in the centre. There's DUM-E, mostly sketches drawn from memory because Steve has never had the opportunity to draw in the workshop. There are quinjets of multiple designs. There are studies of the bike Tony designed for him, the latest model. There are Tony's suits, various models, mostly in action with Tony piloting them. Not to mention the many sketches of Tony himself, in and out of his suits, in the privacy of the Tower or at public functions and work briefings. Some are close-ups of a scene, some are seen from rather far away, some are portraits. 

Steve feels his cheeks heating up the longer he leaves through the pages. Oh god, he never realised he had almost an entire sketchbook filled with drawings relating to Tony. It was not on purpose, and he's not sure if that's a good thing or not. So yes, there are other drawings inbetween - scenes of the city, architecture, landscapes, random people, the other team members - but the overall tendency is still impossible to miss. Steve packs up his things and returns to his quarters because suddenly he feels the urge to find out whether it's a recent phenomenon or not.

Checking his other sketchbooks - yes, he has a collection by now - reveals that it's actually a kind of theme running through all of them. Ever since he met Tony, the man features quite prominently in his sketches. Drawings of Tony become more frequent the longer they know each other, and they take on a different quality, as if Steve's changing perception of Tony influenced how he drew him. There are more portraits in the newer sketchbooks, catching Tony in many different moods and situations. Most of them originate from before Steve's hospital stay, when Tony did not avoid him yet to the degree he does since.

While leafing through the pages, Steve gets an idea of what to do. He wraps all the sketchbooks featuring Tony - four in total - in one of the satin cloths he uses to store them. Then he ties a simple black ribbon around them to keep them together, just as he does with those he keeps in his shelf. The four sketchbooks date from their first meeting up until the present day, because Steve decided to include his current, still unfinished sketchbook. He has a point to prove, after all. For once he's glad about his habit to not only sign his drawings, but also to add the month and year from when they date. 

Before he can change his mind, Steve takes the pile of wrapped books and asks JARVIS where he can find Bruce. Conveniently, Bruce is at that moment in the common kitchen getting dinner, so Steve heads over there and joins Bruce, Sam, Natasha and Clint in dinner. Afterwards he privately asks Bruce to deposit the package on Tony's desk in the workshop. Bruce seems confused for a few moments, but agrees nonetheless. Steve thanks him for his help and returns to his quarters because he feels so nervous that he just can't deal with people around him. 

He never shows his drawings to anybody, even Peggy just saw them by chance. Not because he's shy or because he thinks they're not good enough, but because they're his way of dealing with the world. They're his thoughts, his interests, his fears, his fascination, his confusion, his appreciation. They're as personal as it can get, and yet he has no idea what Tony will do with them. Maybe he'll tear them to shreds and throw them away. It's his right, Steve figures. In some way they've always been his drawings, after all. It doesn't calm his queasy stomach, though. He'd love to blame it on dinner, but he doesn't get food poisoning any more. 

There's no reaction. It's probably even worse than a negative reaction, because it leaves him hanging in limbo. Steve waits for days, but nothing happens. He asks Bruce if Tony got the package, and Bruce nods, telling him that he gave it to Tony personally, so there's no way he didn't get it. That doesn't make Steve feel any better, because it means that Tony didn't accept his confession - _again_. Steve still keeps up the coffee thing, sometimes adding the freakiest donuts he can find, sometimes a brownie from the little café in Brooklyn that makes the best brownies in the world, in Steve's opinion. 

A week - nothing. Two weeks - nothing. Steve resigns to the fact that he won't get a response, not even a negative one. He hasn't seen Tony since he kicked him out of the workshop, but that's hardly surprising given his prior avoidance of Steve. That wasn't bound to change, after all. On top of that, Steve knows that Tony and Bruce are still busy trying to come up with an efficient defence against the aliens, something on a greater scale than the racket-shields. They're good for the defence against individual attackers, but not their small ships and certainly not the mother ships. Tony and Bruce believe the aliens will come back, and Steve shares that assessment. He doesn't believe that they've seen the brunt of the aliens' forces yet, it was probably just the tip of the spear. Who knows what's still to come? In any case it won't hurt to be prepared.

Steve almost wishes that something would happen so that he can focus on something other than his non-existent progress in convincing Tony about the sincerity of his feelings. When there's a mission in Ukraine, Steve gladly joins Natasha and Clint, just to get away from the Tower and his private problems. Things go wrong halfway through, and Steve can't even be upset about it. In a - probably inappropriate - way, he appreciates the high level of action that keeps his thoughts from wandering for several days and Natasha from asking about it. He's well aware that she knows about it. 

True to their expectations, the aliens do come back, and it's only a few days after Steve, Natasha and Clint return from Ukraine. It seems that the creatures still haven't realised that they can't have this planet. This time it's been seven weeks since their last attack, obviously the last defeat hurt them quite a bit. Or they took the time to come up with new ways to attack, which would not be so good. 

The call to assemble comes in the late morning on a Saturday, and it's a beautiful day with a blue sky and the late summer sun out. That's not good in this specific case, because it means a lot of people are outdoors, in the streets and parks and by the water. The city-wide alarms have been blaring for several minutes when the quinjet lifts off the Tower, and Steve is not particularly pleased that he can spot three mother ships with the naked eye. There are probably more out there, these aliens must have realised by now that they need a stronger force that what they brought the last two times. 

The first aliens are about to touch ground when the quinjet deposits the Avengers at the improvised Alien Threat Response headquarters of the police and the military, from where they coordinate their forces. The Avengers are hooked into their systems to provide special reinforcement when necessary, otherwise they act on their own in order to eradicate the origin of the attack while the police and the military keep things under control on the ground. Steve tries not to show his amusement at the open and enthusiastic anticipation of another round of alien tennis that he can observe not only in Thor, Clint and Sam, but also in the police and military personnel on the ground. 

Bruce has so far not transformed because in this battle, his scientific expertise is far more needed than Hulk's preference of smashing things. He and Tony have thoroughly analysed the downed ship as well as the occasional hand-held weapon they could get their hands on, and they carefully processed the data collected throughout the last two attacks. They've not only come up with a strategy how to defeat the aliens, but also with a plan of attack for the mother ships.

Since humans can't operate the alien weapons - Bruce said something about a DNA lock - and neither can Thor nor any other non-human they could think of, the solution was to find a way to store the blasts and release them in one concentrated volley. Therefore a number of the racket-shields are adapted to absorb the blasts instead of reflecting them. There are now several Special Forces units using those modified rackets positioned around collectors into which the rackets feed through long cords. Given their limited range of movement, the task of other units is to herd aliens towards them so that they can collect as many blasts as possible. Bruce is on site to coordinate the six collectors and their units and to release and aim the blast volleys via a remote control system. 

The entire plan hinges on gathering enough blasts to destroy the mother ships, which Tony and Bruce have determined as the driving force behind the attacks. The reaction of the aliens to the loss of the mother ship during the last attack shows their dependence on those ships, which probably serve as command centres as well as suppliers of small ships and alien forces. The aliens in captivity have been tame as lambs ever since, but a warning was issued that that may change drastically with the arrival of new mother ships. The prison is on high alert, and Steve hopes that it won't turn into another hotspot. They're in contact with the prison, should they require assistance. 

Tony and Bruce are still busy setting up the last two collectors when the attack begins. Clint, Natasha, Thor and Steve are tasked to help directing aliens towards the functioning collector units and fight them whenever it's necessary. Meanwhile Rhodes and Sam are asserting the number and position of the mother ships and marking them with tracers for the guidance system of the blast volleys. Since it's an untested system, there's no guarantee it'll actually work. It's also unknown if the aliens came up with any countermeasures to protect themselves and their ships against their own weapons. If they did, humanity is pretty screwed. 

Steve joins the front lines and uses his racket-shield to reflect the blasts so that the evasive manoeuvres of the aliens make them approach the nearest collector. Its ten-men Special Forces team is busy catching blasts, and it's satisfying to see the cords of their rackets pulse frequently with absorbed energy. It's also oddly reminiscent of kids playing badminton, and Steve has to smirk when he hears the men count their hits in a competition of who gets the most. Yeah, big kids.

Status reports come in from all over the city, some belonging to the six collector teams, others to the forces spread out throughout the city to counter the awfully widespread attack. It quickly reaches the point where the large number of aliens requires the defending teams to kill them because they become too overpowering. Tony has joined Rhodes and Sam in marking the mother ships, eight of which they have counted so far, and he and Bruce coordinate the first blast volley when one of the collectors is almost filled to capacity. They're filling up faster than expected, and it's essential to deplete them before they reach maximum capacity because it's not like they can order the collector teams to stand down - it would basically leave them and the collectors defenceless. 

Steve listens with half an ear to Tony and Bruce while he's busy disposing of as many aliens as he can. It's really getting a little much, and there's no sign of the attack slowing down, the creatures are still arriving in a steady stream in their small ships. Natasha, Clint and Thor are reporting a similar development in their quadrants, and Sam just found a ninth mother ship. Tony orders everybody to clear the sky, and then the collector closest to Steve releases a massive energy blast. It's less of a volley and more of a huge blob that is not particularly fast. Sadly it only skims the mother ship it was supposed to destroy, but at least all the small ships in its path disintegrate instantly and the mother ship seems to be damaged.

"I think we should discharge earlier." Bruce comments over the comms. "The more energy we collect, the more sluggish is the blast. Maybe half capacity?"

"Agreed." Tony replies immediately. "And we need to aim higher, I think. The blast behaves not quite as anticipated."

"On it. Collector three is already over half capacity. Numbers two and five are almost there." Bruce announces and then turns to forcewide comms. "Clear the sky! Fire in the hole!" 

Seconds later there is another energy blob in the sky, this one coming from somewhere over Brooklyn and aiming at the mother ship hovering over the Upper Bay. It's equally huge and slow as the first, but this time it hits the mother ship head on. The reaction is immediate as the ship mostly disintegrates while the rest of it goes up in flames. At least the aliens didn't come up with a shield to protect themselves against their own weapons, Steve thinks contently and deflects another blast at an attacking creature.

Bruce stays on forcewide comms because he's almost constantly firing one of the six collectors. Seems the harvest is going well, then. The discharges at half capacity are distinctly smaller, but also a lot faster and Bruce seems to get the hang of how to aim them. The tracers on the mother ships only help him to select the right ship for the right collector given their respective position, but they're not a homing device. The blasts aren't missiles, they don't follow a tracker but go wherever they're aimed. It seems to take at least three half-capacity volleys to take down a mother ship, but Bruce is proving a talented marksman. As long as the aliens don't take out the collectors, they're good. It's actually convenient to have the creatures flock towards the collectors where the Special Forces teams are waiting eagerly with their rackets to absorb blasts for Bruce's next shot. Steve, Natasha and Clint have by now transitioned from herding aliens towards the collectors to taking out the too great number of attackers and leaving just enough for the harvest of blasts. 

Sam, Tony and Rhodes are still busy with the mother ships, four of which are down, but two more have already popped up. Steve keeps his focus on his own task while still following what's going on with the rest of his team and the other forces. The police report that casualties in the suburbs are on the rise, and the military have called in reinforcement to join the police forces spread out all over the city. Clint is close to collector four and calls in to let them know that some help would be good or they might lose it soonish. Natasha is in a similar position at collector two and Tony reassigns Sam and Rhodes to them respectively when they're sure that they've found all the mother ships and Tony can continue marking them alone. 

The reinforcement pays off and Bruce keeps firing, announcing the result of each shot over the forcewide comms. Steve knows he does it on one side to boost morale and on the other side so that the respective collector teams know when to go at it especially hard. It's working, the numbers of the mother ships reduce, slowly but steadily. Steve feels the grime of the battle stick to him, dust and dirt collecting in the sweat running down his face under the monstrosities of the frequency protection helmet, but Bruce's running commentary about the development way above their heads in the sky is oddly motivating.

And then - _yes!_ \- they're down to one mother ship. Admittedly, it's the largest one and has carefully remained out of the blast volley range of the collectors, but it still feels like a success. That one ship seems to be enough to keep control of the attacking aliens, because they've neither turned into headless chickens nor tame lambs yet. Steve knows instinctively that taking down that ship is the crucial step to turning this battle around, and it seems that others have come to the same conclusion. Steve keeps defecting blasts and killing attackers while listening to Tony and Bruce agreeing that they will need the combined force of at least four collectors to get the mother ship. Since it's keeping a greater distance than its predecessors, they will need to shoot smaller volleys which are propelled with more force and reach farther, but also carry less destructive force. It seems they need to do some manual changes to the collectors to increase their range of fire, and Tony is off to take on three collectors while Rhodes gets Bruce and ferries him to his respective three collectors. 

Bruce reports his task completed just as Steve sees Tony land at the last collector, which happens to be the one Steve is assigned to. Tony immediately begins removing panels and working on the machine's insides. After two minutes he seals it back up and then he's talking to a police officer and two soldiers whose rank Steve can't determine because they're standing with their backs to him. All of them look ridiculous with the silver frequency-shielding helmets on their heads, but Steve knows not to throw any stones since he's living in the same glass house. 

The collector unit next to them is so loud that it's impossible to hear that they're saying. Tony's face plate is up and he's gesturing towards different parts of the city where they have collector units stationed, obviously laying out his plan. The three men nod to what he's saying, their ridiculous helmets bobbing along. Just when the talk is over and the group begins to split up to head into their respective directions, three aliens land around them and start firing. The men are quick to react, their racket-shields up and reflecting blasts immediately. Still, the aliens manage to hit one of the soldiers and Tony, both of them in the head as if they have figured out it's a weak spot. They both go down, but while the soldier gets up almost immediately, Tony stays down.

 _No no no no NO!_ Steve feels his heart stop in his chest.

"TONY!" He's off running towards the unmoving figure before he's even thought about it. "NO! TONY!"

Tony's face plate is up, is the only thing Steve can think, which means that Tony's own frequency protection shield isn't working. Oh god, no! This has to be a terrible joke. First him, now Tony. But Steve can take such a blast, he can survive it because of the serum. But Tony.... Tony has no serum to heal him. He's just human, no matter how much he likes to pretend otherwise. They had told Steve at the hospital that everybody else would have been dead if hit with a blast in the head...

Steve slides to a halt next to Tony. He doesn't spare the aliens any attention because the soldiers and the police officer have taken care of them already. Steve goes down on his knees immediately and rips off his glove to press his fingers to the exposed pulse point at Tony's neck. His face plate is still up and his eyes are closes, his face ghostly still. Steve waits, one heartbeat, two, and there is nothing underneath his fingertips. He readjusts his touch, maybe he just hit the wrong stop, surely he just missed the right spot, because Tony can't be... Nothing, still nothing. 

Steve feels as if somebody is pressing all the air out of his lungs and squeezing his head to the point that it'll explode. He's back in the middle of the worst asthma attack he ever had, back when he was twelve and his mom was at work and nobody was there to help him get through it. It feels like the ice is coming back to claim him, freezing him from the inside. His field of vision narrows until he only sees those aliens that took Tony away from him, _his_ Tony, who he never had the chance to kiss, who he never managed to convince that he loved him with all his heart, just for Tony being Tony. 

Steve isn't consciously aware of getting up, of moving, but he knows he is. His senses are hyperfocussed and he uses them to go after every alien he spots. He runs, jumps, reflects, rolls, hits, ducks, reflects again. It's like a deadly dance, and he excels at it. He wants them dead, _all of them_ , for hurting Tony. He loses any concept of time, it doesn't matter anymore, time is meaningless because Tony is gone, so what does he want with time? But these creatures, they'll never get to enjoy a victory, not after what they have done. 

At some point he stops because there are no aliens left, he can't spot a live one. It's the only reason Steve stills long enough to pick up on somebody shouting his name. It takes him a moment to recognise Sam running towards him, but it's not enough to get him to lose focus on his mission, his last mission: Eradicate _all_ of those aliens. 

"STEVE!" Sam has reached him and is shaking his shoulders viciously, once, twice, until Steve finally looks him in the eye.

"Steve, listen to me! Tony is alive!" Sam says intently, clearly enunciating every word. 

"What?!" It's as if the haze around him is clearing, as if the colours are returning, as if his field of vision widens until he can see again as he is used to. 

"He's in the hospital. Natasha brought him in." Sam explains quickly and efficiently. "Come on, there's a car waiting to give you a lift over there. We'll take care of things here, we've shot down the last mother ship."

Steve swallows hard, then he gives a grateful nod. "Thank you, Sam."

Sam smiles. "That's what friends are for."

The way to the hospital passes in a blur. Steve feels as if time is simultaneously stretching endlessly and rushing past. He doesn't wait for the car to come to a halt before he's out of the door and running towards the entrance of the hospital. It's obviously pretty busy due to alien attack, but for once Steve doesn't really see it, his focus is entirely on finding Tony. He asks the first nurse he spots and she sends him on to the top floor where the neurology department is situated. Steve doesn't bother with the elevator and instead runs up the stairs. The exercise helps him burn the restless energy that has taken hold of him ever since he learned that Tony is alive.

He doesn't even have to say a word when he gets to the reception. They know immediately who he is why he's here, it seems that Natasha told them to expect him. Steve is vibrating with a strange combination of fear and hope when he follows a nurse through the hallways to the room where they settled Tony. She opens the door to let him in and Steve's gaze is immediately drawn to the figure in the lonely bed in the room. Tony looks so small and pale under the stark white sheets, so unlike his usual passionate self. There are sensors attached to his temples and his hand, but otherwise he looks unharmed. It's his utter motionlessness that makes a shiver run down Steve's back.

"He was lucky that his helmet was still on and just the faceplate up." A voice says next to him and Steve can't help flinching because he was so focussed on Tony that he didn't even notice that Natasha is in the room. Her voice is calm, but there's no mistaking the relief in it. "He was hit in the back of his helmet which reduced the effect of the frequency. His brain waves are already normalising, though slowly. They expect him to regain consciousness by tomorrow." 

"What... How... I felt for his pulse, it wasn't there..." Steve doesn't try to keep his voice steady, allows it to break around the edges. He doesn't care if she knows what Tony means to him, she probably did long before him, anyway.

"It's a redundancy in the suit." Natasha explains calmly. "Basically, JARVIS performed revitalisation measures on Tony when his vitals didn't return within a predefined time limit. That was after you had already taken off."

"So he did..." Steve doesn't want to say it, but he's never been one for sugar-coating things. "He did die?"

"Yes, for a moment." She confirms, her voice very quiet. "But JARVIS acted quickly, so they expect no lasting damage."

Steve has to swallow against the bile rising in his throat. "And then?"

"JARVIS contacted me because I was already approaching Tony at the time, and I got him here."

"How close was it?" Steve forces himself to ask because if he doesn't, it will float around in his head until he goes crazy. He'd rather face his demons head on.

Natasha looks him square in the eye. " _Very_ close."

Steve forcefully squashes the impulse to take Tony's hand at her words. He instinctively reaches out, but aborts the gesture mid air.

"Go on, Steve." Natasha says with a little smile. "He'll want you to."

"He never gave me permission to touch him." Steve replies with a slow shake of his head. "Quite the contrary, actually." 

"Trust me, Steve, he wants you here, and he wants you to hold his hand." Natasha's voice leaves no doubt about the truth of her words, and Steve believes her, but that's not the point. 

"I believe you, Nat, I really do, but I won't touch him without his permission." Steve shakes his head slowly. "I owe him that much respect."

Natasha is silent for a moment, then she sighs. It sounds rather fond. "You're too decent for your own good, Steve."

Steve gives a lopsided smirk. "I'm old-fashioned like that."

Natasha chuckles and bumps her shoulder into his. "Fossil."

Steve sighs dramatically, but there's a little smile on his lips. "I know. I know."

"But you'll stay." Natasha doesn't leave a doubt about the fact that she expects him to. 

"I won't leave unless he asks me to." Steve says and hears the steel in his own voice. Oh yes, he means it.

"Good." Natasha seems pleased, but then she looks him up and down pointedly. "But promise me that you'll at least take a shower and change into clean clothes when they're delivered."

Steve can't quite hide his surprise. "When they're delivered?"

"Well yes, Happy is on his way with a fresh set for you. I figured you wouldn't return to the Tower to clean up, so I asked him to help out." She explains nonchalantly, and there's definitely a smug touch to her smile. "Or did I get something wrong here?" 

Steve allows himself to give into the urge to roll his eyes, although there's a hint of a smile playing around his lips. "No, you didn't."

At that moment Bruce's voice comes over the comms, first asking about Tony, then informing them about the defeat of the aliens. He lets them know that the team will have to stay a while longer to coordinate with the other participants in this battle, but then they'll come by the hospital. They've even arranged for the debrief to take place at the hospital. Steve has an inkling that Bruce also knows he won't leave Tony's side. 

Happy arrives about an hour after Steve did, and he's complaining about the traffic and all the detours he had to take to get to the hospital. He's also bearing an insulated bag with four extra-large pizzas (on Natasha's orders, who intends to use them as leverage to keep everybody long enough for the post-mission briefing) and several Thermos bottles of the Tower's delicious coffee that JARVIS made and told him to take with him. Steve feels like could kiss JARVIS, because the coffee is fantastic and exactly what he needs. 

On top of the pizza boxes rest two paper bags with clean clothes, one set for Steve and one for Tony. Steve takes them before they can topple down when Happy balances his charges into the hospital room. Steve wonders how he managed to transport all of that through the busy hospital halls without crashing into somebody or losing half of his goods.

"Go clean up, Steve." Natasha jerks her chin at the en-suite once he's had a cup of the delicious coffee. She's holding a cup of her own and obviously enjoys it just as much as Steve did. 

Steve hesitates, his gaze flickering back to Tony, just as it seems to be doing every few seconds. He's still utterly motionless, nothing has changed in that regard.

Natasha catches his gaze and gives him a rare, sincere smile. "Go. I'll stay with him."

Steve knows there's no danger to Tony here, but it still calms him to know Natasha guarding him. Nothing will happen to Tony if she's there, and Steve himself will only be one door away. So he nods, grabs the paper bag with his name scribbled on in black sharpie and disappears into the bathroom. He keeps it quick and his hair is still wet from the shower when he leaves the room not ten minutes later. It feels good to be in clean clothes, just jeans and a t-shirt and a light jacket. His dirty uniform is neatly folded in the paper bag. He's not entirely sure that it can be saved, there's a lot of gore on it from when he went berserk on the aliens. He's still not quite sure how to feel about his loss of control, but he pushes it away for now to think about it later. 

Pepper comes by before any of the team members arrive. She looks stricken when she sees Tony, and Steve discreetly slips out of the door to wait in the hallway to give them some privacy. Pepper doesn't stay long, but she gives Steve a grateful smile before she asks him back into the room when she leaves. 

Sam and Thor arrive first, Clint and Rhodey just a few minutes later and Bruce is last because he's responsible for the transport of the collectors and therefore in high demand at the moment. Everybody's worry for Tony is obvious, and Steve wishes that he could see it so that he might finally believe that there are people who love him just for who he is. It still pains Steve that Tony doesn't really know that, or at least doesn't think it's sincere. Not because he doubts them, but because he doubts that he's worth it. 

The pizzas are met with enthusiastic approval and do their job of ensuring that the entire team stays for the full briefing. It's almost comfortable how they all sit on the floor next to Tony's bed, the pizza boxes in the middle, and the briefing probably the most informal one they ever had. JARVIS joins via Tony's suit that stood in sentry mode by the door until Bruce asks him to join to give them the overall picture of what happened. It's an hour or two later that they begin to file out to return to the Tower and finally clean up and change in less filthy clothes. Natasha touches her hand to Steve's shoulder and gives a quick squeeze before she leaves the room. It feels oddly comforting and encouraging. 

When the room is empty, Steve gathers the empty pizza boxes and puts them in a neat stack nest to the bin that's way to small for them. Then he pulls the only chair in the room over to Tony's bed so that he can sit next to him. He still has to fight the constant urge to reach for Tony's hand, to run his fingers over the skin on the back on his hand, to feel the regular beating of his heart through fingertips pressed to his pulse point. But Steve means what he told Natasha, that he has no right to touch him since Tony has only ever opposed to any physical contact with Steve. 

After staring at Tony for way too long, Steve gets out his StarkPhone and loads the book he's currently reading. It's one of the things he likes about technology, that he can have an entire bookshelf of novels with him at any given time and it fits in his pocket. He still prefers print editions whenever he has the choice, but there's no denying the convenience of the option to carry them digitally. Within minutes Steve is immersed in his book, yet always keeping an eye on Tony. Nothing happens, though, he stays as motionless as when he was brought in. 

It's only been a few hours, and it's already freaking Steve out. He suddenly understands Tony a lot better, who had to wait _three days_ for Steve to show any sign of life again. Especially given Steve's healing factor, that must have been so much worse. It's when night has long since fallen that Steve finally caves and gets up to press his fingers against the pulse point at Tony neck, just as he remembers watching Tony do countless times to him on the video footage from Steve's hospital room. The steady pulse under his fingertips calms him down immediately, and Steve imagines that it had pretty much the same effect on Tony. 

Steve reads throughout the night because he doesn't want to fall asleep and risk missing Tony waking up. Tony never moves, and Steve has to check his pulse four more times to convince himself that he's still alive. The surveillance monitors tell him that without checking, but they're not enough to convince him. By seven a doctor has come by to check on Tony and reassure Steve that everything is looking good and normal. Shortly afterwards a nurse brings a tray of food for Steve which is definitely not from the hospital mess, and there's another Thermos of the Tower's coffee, which tells Steve right away that somebody on the team arranged for this special delivery. He would bet it was either Natasha or Sam. 

After breakfast Steve returns to his book. It's becoming difficult to concentrate, however, because Tony is still not moving and Steve is getting nervous. Didn't they say they expect him to wake up today? It's almost lunchtime and nothing has happened so far, apart from Rhodes and Pepper coming by at different times during the morning. Otherwise it's ghostly quiet with Tony more resembling a mannequin than a living human being. Steve doesn't like it at all, it's not like Tony to be so still. 

When there's a movement on the bed, it almost catches Steve by surprise. He puts his phone away immediately and focusses on the tiny movement he spotted. It's Tony furrowing his eyebrows, followed by his head turning very slowly towards Steve. Steve feels his heart almost beating out of his chest and he can't contain the smile coming to his lips. Tony is moving, it's one of the best sights he has experienced in ages.

"Tony?" Steve keeps his voice very low and calm because he still remembers how he felt when he woke for the first time after getting hit by the alien blast. He assumes that it's even worse for Tony, since he doesn't have the serum speeding up the healing process.

"Steve?" Tony's voice is rough from disuse and probably a good deal of pain. His eyes are still closed and only blink open for a second before he squinches them shut and groans at the bright sunlight filling the room. Steve forces himself to contain his excitement at Tony using his name.

"I'm here, Tony. Take it easy, you've been hit by an alien blast." He says with as much of a soothing voice as he can. 

"Nasty buggers." Tony growls and Steve can't help chuckling at that. Seems Tony got through this ordeal without any serious damage. "Is everyone all right? Did we do it?"

"Scratches and bruises, nothing worse." Steve replies honestly because he knows Tony won't rest if he's worried. He's already peeling open his eyes again, still blinking furiously against the light. "And your plan worked: Bruce grilled that last mother ship with the four collectors working in sync." 

"Knew we could do it." Tony smirks smugly, and somehow that eases Steve's worries more than a thousand words from the docs could have. Before he can say anything, the door opens and a doctor comes in with a nurse in tow. They politely but firmly order Steve out of the room for the check-up they're about to perform and he stays right outside the door, ready to bolt in immediately should it become necessary. 

His watch tells him that it only takes ten minutes until the doctor comes out, but to Steve it feels incredibly much longer. She comes up to him and informs him that Tony's condition is very good given that his body basically shut down not 24 hours ago. His reflexes are fine, his cognitive skills are what they're supposed to be, neither his speech nor his movements are impaired. He's still weak and feels exhausted, but she deems that perfectly natural due to the intense recovery effort his body is going through. He needs a lot of rest over the next days or even weeks, and she wants to keep him for at least another night. If things look good tomorrow after a more extensive round of tests, he'll be allowed to go home as long as he's under constant supervision. 

Steve listens carefully and feels more relieved with every word she says. The tension he felt in his neck eases a bit. The nurse comes out and hands the doc a chart with the results of the additional tests she just performed and the doc nods contently. Everything is looking good so far and he's allowed back into the room.

When they have left him alone in the hallway, Steve stands in front of the door for a minute or two trying to tell himself that it'll work somehow, he got his second chance, Tony hasn't kicked him out yet. Tony is _alive_ , he's reasonably well, and he's on the road to recovery. That's all that matters in the end, it's much more important than his quest to convince Tony of the sincerity of his feelings. As longs as Tony is alive and well, Steve can deal with not being a part of his life. 

Steve knocks once and pushes the door open when there's no reply. He immediately sees why - Tony is asleep again. He retrieved his StarkPhone from the bedside table and it's still halfway in his hand and halfway on the mattress next to him. Steve can't help smiling at the picture, it's just so Tony. Not even awake for ten minutes, but already on his phone, probably checking in with JARVIS to make sure everybody is all right and finding out how the battle went. Steve closes the door behind him, quietly to make sure that he doesn't disturb Tony's sleep, and then he returns to his spot on the chair next to the bed. He sits down and reaches out to take Tony's phone and place it safely back on the bedside table where it won't either fall to the floor or be squished. 

Suddenly Steve feels a wave of exhaustion overwhelm him. Now that he knows that Tony will be all right, the battle and the sleepless night catch up to him. Maybe it's mental exhaustion more than physical, because he knows he's gone through worse times from a physical point of view without feeling anything like this. Still, he allows himself to give in and pulls the chair close enough to the bed so that he can rest his arms on the mattress, just like he remembers Tony doing all those weeks ago. Within minutes Steve is asleep and he's glad that his sleep is deep and dreamless.

He wakes to the sensation of a hand carding through his hair. It's a slow, gentle motion, soothing and pleasant, and Steve doesn't wake entirely because he instinctively knows he's safe. He doesn't bother opening his eyes, just smiles and turns into the touch. The caress stops for a second, but then resumes. Steve just enjoys it without giving it too much thought. He's still caught in that space between sleeping and waking that allows him to relax because his mind is not at full capacity yet and it is in no hurry to get there. 

The fingers move through his hair and caress the back on his neck, and Steve feels goosebumps where they touch his skin. It's a pleasant feeling that he's not used to, and it's enough to slowly pull him into the waking world. When he opens his eyes, he sees the stark white sheets and the plain white wall typical for medical institutions of any kind. A second later he realises that it's Tony who's carding his hand through Steve's hair, and he can't help tensing for a second. Tony obviously feels it and his hands stills for a moment, then its starts moving again, soothing from the top of his head to his neck.

"I know what you felt. When I went down yesterday." Tony's voice sounds rough around the edges. "It was the same for me when you got knocked out. I _didn't know_." 

"Know what?" Steve asks with his voice still rough from sleep. He's frowning in confusion although Tony can't see it, because Steve's head is still resting on the mattress with the back facing Tony. It's easier to talk this way, however, and Steve decides not to turn around to look at Tony. The hand is still passing through his hair, and that's somehow enough.

"I never got the chance to run a scan on you." Tony's voice is so utterly quiet that Steve has to strain to hear it. "And the entire time you never moved. You never get knocked out like that."

Suddenly it dawns on Steve what he's talking about and he feels a wave of chilling goosebumps spread over his skin. During the entire fight on the Brooklyn Bridge, Tony didn't know if Steve was even alive or if he was defending a corpse. Seen in the light of what he knows now about Tony's feelings and considering his own experience yesterday, he knows that equals pure torture. He's speechless with the realisation of what it must have felt like for Tony. It explains so many things he saw in the videos, the footage from the bridge as well from the hospital.

"I couldn't think clearly anymore." Steve swallows hard and forces himself to let Tony in on his feelings, hoping that they won't get slapped in his face again, ridiculed by Tony's disbelief. "The most important thing in my world was gone and the only goal I had left was to kill those who had taken it from me. I don't think I would have stopped on my own. Because once I did, there would have been... nothing."

Tony's hand in his hair freezes and Steve feels it shiver slightly. Tony remains quiet and motionless for a moment that stretches Steve's nerves almost to their breaking point. "You really mean it, don't you?" 

It sounds more like a statement than a question, but Steve answers anyway. He turns his head until he can look up at Tony who's sitting up in the bed. "I always did, Tony." 

He feels laid bare, open and vulnerable and oddly afraid. If Tony wants to, he can hurt him unbelievably deeply right now, to the point where Steve will not come back again. He wonders if Tony knows that, if he feels that this is their turning point, the moment that'll decide how they're going to treat each other for the rest of their lives. It feels monumental and yet fleeting, and Steve realises he's holding his breath, looking Tony in the eye and waiting for his decision.

Tony holds his gaze, and there's so much going on behind his eyes that Steve can't follow the individual emotions. His hand is resting on the side of Steve's neck, not moving, neither to pull back nor to caress. Tony suddenly averts his eyes, just for a second, and Steve sees him swallow so hard that his Adam's apple bobs. Then he's back to looking Steve in the eye, and it feels like he's come to a decision. Steve's skin prickles, and he can't quite say whether it's in fear or hope. 

"Steve..." Tony stops, licks his lips. "I'm sorry. About how I reacted before. In the workshop."

Steve closes his eyes reflexively at the memory of the pain that Tony's disbelief caused. He takes a deep breath and opens his eyes again to catch Tony watching him. "Thank you, Tony."

Tony looks at him for a long time, and Steve can read regret in his eyes. "I hurt you, didn't I?" 

Steve just nods. He's always honest, and he's not about to change that now. 

"I never thought I could." Tony's voice is serious.

"I know." Steve says without reproach. He's not holding it against Tony because he knows that he didn't do it out of cruelty. He truly didn't know, didn't expect that he had that kind of power over Steve. It makes him sad that Tony didn't even believe it when told to his face. "Just... please tell me you won't go back to avoiding me when we get back home."

Tony shakes his head immediately. "I won't. I promise."

"Good." Steve moves his head on the mattress until Tony's fingers touch his hair again. 

"I like it when you do that." Steve admits with a shy little smile. Tony seems to be caught off guard for a moment, then he returns the smile. Steve loves how it reaches his eyes, followed by the gentle fingers starting to card through his hair again. Steve closes his eyes and melts into the touch, not bothering to hide how much he likes it. 

"Thank you for not giving up on me, Steve." Tony says after a while, his voice holding a warmth that Steve has never heard him use in combination with Steve's name. It feels so good that it makes him smile.

"I never will, Tony. I'm stubborn like that."

Tony chuckles and keeps running his fingers through Steve's hair. "Good to know."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, did you like the chapter? Yes? No? You could make this wee author's day a lot brighter by leaving me a comment, no matter how big or tiny! A lot of time and love and effort went into this, so consider giving me a wee bit of love? Please? *puppy dog eyes*


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right, we're almost done. I will post this and the next chapter together, and not only because of my trip, but also because... well, you'll see when you get to the chapter 9 :D

"Finally." Clint. Smug.

"Shhh! He's sleeping." Tony. Whispering. 

"Took you two long enough." Natasha. Not bothering to keep her voice down. Long-suffering, but fond.

"Keep it down!" Tony again, now closer to a stage whisper.

"Really, it was turning into a soap opera." Sam. Definitely amused. 

"Can't you guys keep it down?" Tony, still stage whispering. 

"Friend Steve was getting desperate, Man of Iron. You posed him a great challenge." Thor, voice booming as always. He probably doesn't know how to whisper.

"Thor, shut up! You'll wake him!" Tony is still trying to whisper, but he's losing the battle. It doesn't really matter anyway, Steve is awake now. The first thing he notices is that Tony is still carding his hand through his hair, sometimes the fingertips linger at the base of Steve neck. He likes that feeling a lot. 

Steve opens his eyes to find himself looking straight at a leather-clad crotch. He blinks twice, but it's still there. Steve is vaguely disconcerted that he can tell it's Thor even before he lifts his head off the mattress.

"Ouch." Steve mumbles while he bends his neck left and right to get the kinks out of it. Sleeping on a chair with his head on a bed is not the most comfortable position. He wonders how Tony did it for three nights while still being able to move in the mornings.

"Now you did it! You're so inconsiderate." Tony complains next to him, but no apologies come forward. Steve looks around to see Bruce next to him, smiling. To his left stands Natasha, who also looks quite content. Clint next to her is smirking smugly while Thor full out beams with satisfaction. Sam and Rhodes are both wearing a sincere smile that radiates affections as well as contentedness. None of them seem even remotely apologetic, instead they have the aura of a team that just successfully completed a very difficult mission and now they feel like celebrating. 

"Good evening, Sleeping Beauty." Clint greets Steve without losing his smug smirk. 

It's indeed dark outside, which means that Steve must have slept another two or three hours. He didn't even know he needed it so much. But Steve can't deny that he feels well rested and somehow light, as if a burden was taken from his shoulder. Which is kind of true, because he finally managed to clear the air with Tony. 

Tony, who's sitting up in the hospital bed, looking so much better than this morning. Tony, who is looking at Steve without hiding the affection in his gaze. Steve finds himself smiling at Tony before he can even think about doing it. 

"Awwwww!" Clint coos loudly. "They're so in love!" 

"Aren't they cute?" Natasha's smirk is definitely teasing.

Steve feels himself blush. Obviously he and Tony are neither a secret nor a surprise to the other members of the team. Steve can't help wondering how long they knew. 

"Stop it, you make him blush." Tony comes to his defence, but his words only make Steve feel even more awkward and embarrassed. He's not used to showing his feelings this openly, especially when something is still as new as his and Tony's relationship. They haven't even kissed, for crying out loud! He would really appreciate a bit of space to breathe and a bit of time to figure things out with Tony before getting comments on it.

"Come on, guys, let's give the lovebirds a bit of privacy." Natasha takes Clint by the shoulders to turn him around and push him towards the door. He's obviously enjoying tormenting Steve and Tony too much to stop on his owns, so she helps it along. Among congratulation and wishes of farewell the rest of the team leaves, until only Rhodes is left. He stops in the doorway, turns around and looks at them in an almost challenging way. "Tomorrow evening, team night with movies. I expect _both_ of you to be there. This annoying game of avoiding each other is hopefully over."

Tony nods immediately, he's obviously well aware Rhodes is more addressing him with that last sentence than Steve. "It is, Rhodey." 

"Good to hear. It was getting rather exhausting for all of us." Rhodes doesn't bother to hide his annoyance. Steve has to agree with him, it was getting not only frustrating but also ridiculous. When the door falls shut behind Rhodes, an uncomfortable silence settles over the room.

"Well, that wasn't awkward at all." Tony comments drily, and Steve can't help chuckling. 

"No, not at all." He replies with a grin.

"At least we don't need to worry about how to tell them." Tony offers with a shrug. There's a smile playing around his lips.

"Yeah, I think that issue resolved itself." Steve agrees before stretching again. He warily eyes the chair that gave him a cricked neck, then sighs and resigns to sitting back down. He's not going to leave Tony alone over uncomfortable sleeping arrangements.

"Oh, come on! I hope you don't plan on sleeping in that chair again." Tony says with open disdain before Steve can even sit down. Steve looks up to see Tony glaring at the chair. "I haven't forgotten how uncomfortable those things are."

"They're not the most pleasant chairs, I'll give you that." Steve smirks. "So, what's your suggestion?"

"There's more than enough room for the two of us." Tony replies without hesitating and taps the mattress. Then he wiggles his eyebrows suggestively, exaggerating the gesture on purpose. "If you don't mind sharing, that is."

Steve can't quite decide whether to laugh, choke or blush and ends up doing a strange combination of all three options before he answers, "No, I definitely don't mind."

"Great." Tony beams and scoots aside to make some space. "Hop on, then."

Steve strips off his shoes and climbs on the bed, careful not to squish Tony or make the bed capsize. It's one of those instances where he feel like his body is too big, probably because the vast majority of his time spent in hospital beds was pre-serum. 

"Come here." Tony offers and hold out his arm. Steve lies down and stretches out along Tony's side, resting his head on his shoulder, his arm across his chest and a leg over Tony's. He feels Tony's arm settle around his shoulder and it's surprising how well they fit like this, how comfortable he feels. Tony's hand comes to rest on the back of Steve's neck, then his fingers slide in Steve's hair and begin their slow caress again. Steve can't suppress his instinctive reaction to bend his head and give him better access. He never knew until today how much he likes it to get his neck and hair caressed.

"The nurses might kick me out when they see this." Steve murmurs against Tony's collar bone, deeply enjoying the touch of Tony's fingertips against his skin.

"No, they won't." Tony replies with total conviction.

"What makes you so sure?"

"I'm a major donor. The wing we're currently in was paid for by Stark Industries." Steve can hear the smug grin in Tony's voice.

"Okay." Steve admits with a chuckle and cuddles closer. "That might give us some leeway."

"If not, I'll just have JARVIS buy the whole hospital." Tony offers and Steve isn't sure if he's joking. "Nobody is keeping me from holding on to you for the rest of the night."

_That_ is not a joke, Steve can tell right away. And it makes his heart beat faster, sends goosebumps down his entire body, causes a shiver of arousals to run through him. He raises his head and stretches his neck so that he can touch his nose to the skin below Tony's chin. From there he trails along his jaw, up his cheek, to his nose. Tony is meeting him halfway, bending his head until their noses are caressing in an Eskimo kiss. They're sharing their breath, Steve can feel the warm moist air of Tony exhaling on his own lips and it makes him hungry. Hungry for touch, hungry for taste, hungry for Tony. 

He stretches some more to bridge the tiny gap between their mouths and then he feels Tony's full lips under his, warm and wet and welcoming. Tony inclines his head, just enough to create a better angle and they slot together in a perfect fit. Steve can't hold back the groan coming from deep within his throat when he feels Tony's tongue meeting his, caressing, challenging, demanding. Tony's beard is gently scratching over Steve's skin and he immediately loves the sensation. Steve allows himself to fall into the kiss, to melt against Tony's body. One of Tony's hands is resting against his neck to pull him even closer, the other one found its way to Steve's side and under his t-shirt, resting on his bare skin. It feels intoxicating, makes Steve drunk on sensations and feelings. Tony sighs into the kiss when Steve raises his arm to cup his jaw, and it's such a beautiful noise that Steve files it away in his memories as something he always wants to remember.

He doesn't know how much time has passed when he pulls back just enough that he can look Tony in the eye. Steve is well aware what he must look like with his tousled hair, his dazed gaze and kiss-swollen lips, but he doesn't mind at all. "Don't ever let go of me, okay?"

Tony breaks into a smile that is so utterly beautiful in its sincere joy that it takes Steve's breath away. "I can do that."


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter consists of 'Bonus Scenes' - if you read attentively, you'll be able to place every single one and they'll probably fill a hole or two you noticed or wondered about while reading the fic ^^ I hope you enjoy this last bit of the story!

**Bonus scene 1:**

"We have to do something about that." Natasha says quietly into the kitchen, empty now that Tony and Steve have left, her voice determined. "They will never get it without some serious outside help."

"I agree, Agent Romanov." JARVIS replies. "They seem to sabotage themselves."

"And they don't even do it knowingly." Natasha takes a sip of her orange juice. "If they did, I could just kick them in the ass."

"That strategy will not work in this particular case, I fear." JARVIS points out drily.

"No, it won't." Natasha agrees and puts her empty glass on the kitchen counter. "We'll have to be very subtle or they will bolt. Both of them."

"My assessment of our respective skill sets is that we are both very good at subtle." JARVIS remarks. "Do you have any suggestions, Agent Romanov?"

Natasha just smirks. "Oh yes."

 

**Bonus scene 2:**

"Sometimes I wonder how Steve managed to stay so naive, given the things he's experienced in his life." Sam mumbles, staring after Steve's retreating form.

"It's a talent of his." Clint retorts from the other side of the table where he's still munching on his egg-and-bacon sandwich.

"Seriously, how does he not see what's going on?" Sam asks with a gesture that's probably meant to include Steve and Tony. "It's not like either of them is very subtle."

"It's beyond me." Clint shrugs in obvious lack of comprehension.

"They need help." Sam resolves after a few minutes of silence.

"They sure do." Clint snorts in dark amusement. "Two idiots in a pot. They'll hit their heads together until they're unconscious, but they'll never get anywhere." 

"I hate agreeing with you, but I fear you're right." Sam admits reluctantly.

"So, any ideas?" Clint finishes his cup of coffee and wistfully eyes the coffee maker, but knows better than to try.

"Not yet." Sam looks like he's thinking about it, though.

"Mr Wilson, Agent Barton, would you care to join Agent Romanov's and my efforts to help Sir and Captain Rogers out of their misery?"

"Of course, JARVIS." Sam sighs as if he's carrying the world's biggest burden on his shoulders. "Steve definitely needs all the help he can get. That guy is oblivious."

Clint shrugs. "Why the hell not? Stark always calls me Cupid, I may as well live up to the name."

"Very well." JARVIS sounds pleased. 

"Say, JARVIS, is it safe for me to get myself another cup of coffee, now that I'm helping you?"

"I wouldn't know, Agent Barton. Why don't you try?" It's the plain innocence in JARVIS' voice that keeps Clint from actually trying.

"Saaaam?" Clint draws out his name and repeats it until Sam rolls his eyes and heads over to the coffee maker.

"This is the last time. Seriously, Clint, apologise already. You bit the hand that feeds you, you should know when to admit that you've screwed up."

"Wise words, Mr Wilson." JARVIS agrees smugly. "Now, the plan is as follows: Agent Romanov and I have a team night planned and we could do with some extra help..."

 

**Bonus scene 3:**

"Ouch. That was harsh." Clint says and stares after Tony, who's stalking out of the quinjet and into the Tower, his suit floating behind him obediently. Steve is still standing at the rear hatch, his shoulders hanging and he's looking like a kicked puppy. 

Natasha follows Steve with her gaze when he slowly leaves the quinjet and makes his way across the landing strip towards the doorway Tony just disappeared into. "JARVIS, I think it's time to get out the big guns. Steve here is about to call it the quits."

"What did you have in mind, Agent Romanov?" JARVIS asks via the quinjet's comms.

"You still have the footage from Steve's hospital room, don't you?"

"Of course, Agent Romanov."

"Show it to Steve when he asks for it. _All_ of it. Including audio."

Clint frowns at her. "What makes you so sure that he'll ask for it?" 

"He will."

"How do you know?"

Natasha sighs, just a little annoyed at having to explain. Clint is pretty much the only person for whom she'll do that. "You heard the panic in Tony's voice when Steve was hit earlier? How he actually called him 'Steve'?"

Clint shrugs. "Sure. Not like it was easy to miss. Why do you think I chimed in? I didn't want Stark to skin poor puppy Steve alive."

"Good boy." Natasha smirks before she continues. "Steve heard it, too. Given how Tony just shot him down, though, Steve will now try to figure out where that discrepancy in treatment comes from. It won't take him long to connect the dots and ask for the hospital footage."

"And then?" Clint asks, curious despite himself. "What happened in the hospital room, anyway?"

Natasha just smirks again. "Let's just say, it will be a bit of a wake-up call."

 

 

**Bonus scene 4:**

"It seems our mission was unsuccessful, my friends." Thor declares as soon as Steve is out of sight on his escape to his quarters.

"Ahh... Did I miss something?" Bruce asks and looks around with a confused expression on his face.

"You are aware of Tony's... _feelings_ for Steve. And vice versa?" Clint asks from where he's perched on the back of a chair.

Bruce nods immediately, because seriously, who _doesn't_ know? Well, apart of Steve and Tony, that is. "Sure, that's no secret."

"It is to Steve. Well, it was, we took care of that aspect." Clint explains, and Bruce gets it.

"That didn't do the trick, though, did it?" Although he says it like a question, it actually isn't one. He knows it didn't work, that much is obvious from the interaction they just witnessed. Tony practically took Steve's head off for nothing. It was obvious that Steve had just tried to catch himself when Thor practically smashed him into Tony.

"Nope. Tony is _real_ good at hiding." Clint admits with a shrug. "And deflecting." 

"And shooting Steve down." Sam adds helpfully.

"Furthermore, friend Steve is has not entered the courtship we hoped for." Thor offers with a disappointed sigh. 

"I don't think he knows _how_ to court somebody, and Tony is not exactly the easiest person to get to know if he doesn't want you to." Bruce says without malice, a simple statement of something they all know to be true.

"Yeah, we need to get those two to talk to each other. Really talk." Natasha concludes after the merry round of opinion sharing. 

"Maybe I could leave the door to the workshop ajar, if JARVIS agrees." Bruce offers after a moment of thinking about it.

"I think it's time for drastic measures, Dr Banner, so you will have my support. DUM-E asked me to let you know that he also offers his help. He said, and I quote, that 'Sir is making an unhappy fool of himself'."

Clint snorts with laughter and almost falls of the chair. "Wow, Tony really overdid it if even Dummy is desperate to get him hooked up." 

"DUM-E is with Sir in the workshop the entire time, Agent Barton. He has to listen to everything and later on he complains to me." JARVIS says drily. 

"Well then, I'll leave the door ajar and Dummy distracts Tony so that he doesn't notice. But how do we get Steve to the workshop without arousing his suspicion?" Bruce wonders out loud. 

"We don't." JARVIS proposes with an aura of smugness. "Captain Rogers tries regularly to talk to Sir and I always have to send him away because Sir denies him entrance to the workshop. When it happens at a convenient time, I will inform Dr Banner about Captain Roger's approach and we can set things in motion."

"Sounds like a plan." Natasha says with a satisfied smirk.

 

 

**Bonus scene 5:**

"Rhodey, we've got a job for you." Clint says and wraps his arm around Rhodey's shoulder. 

"What are you talking about?" Rhodey asks suspiciously. 

"It's very important." Clint makes a dramatic pause. "You have to go down to the gym and give Steve some life-changing advice."

"Clint, what on earth are you talking about? You don't make any sense!"

"He just tried to confess his love for Tony and was rather rudely kicked out." Sam chimes in from Rhodey's other side. "Now he's down in the gym ruining his knuckles and our last reinforced punching bag. He's in serious need of a pep talk by a Tony-expert - and that leaves only you."

Rhodey looks from Sam to Clint and then narrows his eyes. "Are you two playing matchmaker?" 

"Oh, it's not just the two of us." Clint's laugh has a triumphant edge to it. 

"Natasha and JARVIS started it. Now the two of us and Bruce and Thor are in on it as well." Sam elaborates helpfully.

"Not to forget Dummy." Clint adds with a bright grin. He's definitely enjoying this.

"Seriously? _Dummy_?" Rhodey can't contain his surprise at that. Wow, things must have gotten really bad.

"Yep. He told JARVIS he was fed up of Tony making himself unhappy." Clint sighs dramatically. "Poor thing obviously has to listen to Stark all the time."

"And what do you want from me, exactly?" Rhodey is still suspicious of Clint's motives. He trusts Sam to only want what's best for Steve, but Clint has a mischievous streak a mile wide.

"First of all, keep him from destroying the gym, should it become necessary." Clint replies before Sam can elbow him in the side. 

"Just talk to him, give him some advice on how to do better next time." Sam suggests helpfully. "He obviously misstepped somewhere, maybe you can find out where and keep it from happening again."

Rhodey looks from one man to the other again. "So now you want _me_ to play matchmaker." 

"Come on, it's good for Tony. Don't you want him happy?" Clint asks in a blatant attempt at emotional manipulation. 

Rhodey just rolls his eyes. Of course he wants Tony to be happy, and if he didn't by chance agree with them that Steve would make Tony happy, there'd be no way to get him to help them. "Fine. I'll go talk to him. Now let go of me, I need to get my gym clothes, or he won't ever believe that this isn't staged."

 

 

**Bonus scene 6:**

"So where are we at?" Natasha asks nobody in particular.

"They say a picture says more than thousand words, so maybe we should let video footage dating from this morning do the talking." It's JARVIS who replies first. "If you don't mind turning your attention to Agent Romanov's tablet."

They gather around Natasha who's sitting on the living room's couch. The tablet flickers to life and begins playing a surveillance video. It shows Steve depositing an Iron Man mug in front of the workshop's door. It's steaming, obviously freshly brewed, and it only takes a moment before the door opens and Tony sneaks out, quickly checking left and right as if he hadn't asked JARVIS to make sure it's clear. He bends down to get the mug, raises it to his nose and takes a deep breath, smiling at the scent of the fresh coffee. DUM-E appears behind Tony and tries to grab the mug, at which point Tony gets defensive and beats his arm away, arguing with him over whose coffee that is. Then the door falls shut again.

"Maybe we should just lock them in a room together and throw away the key." Clint grumbles at the now blank screen.

"Tony will just hack the door mechanism or pick the lock." Rhodey says with a resigned tone in his voice. "I tried that once."

"Do we want to know the specifics of that event?" The expression on Bruce's face is rather wary.

Rhodey smirks, and there's an edge of evil pleasure to it. "Probably not, no."

"So, how do we get Tony to believe Steve?" Sam asks with a frustrated huff from where he's leaning on the back of the couch to look at the screen of the tablet Natasha is holding.

"Actually, I think he believes him, deep down." Rhodey offers, his voice serious. "That's not the problem."

"Meaning that he just doesn't dare to go for it." Clint points out with as little tact as always. Natasha just rolls her eyes. 

"Steve gave Tony four of his sketchbooks." Bruce informs them, obviously not quite comfortable sharing that information. "After seeing those, it's pretty much impossible not to believe him."

There's silence for a long moment and Bruce feels himself blushing under the collective team staring at him.

"How do you know that?" Rhodey seems to be surprised and suspicious at the same time.

"Steve asked me to give them to Tony." Bruce replies with a shrug that is not nearly as casual as he aimed for.

"And how do you know what's in them?" Clint's voice as well as his raised eyebrow already tell them how he thinks Bruce knows. "You peeked, didn't you?"

"No!" Bruce says indignantly. "He left them on his desk when he got them - open!"

"Ah." Natasha comments drily. "Let me guess, he didn't expect you to be in the workshop that day, did he?"

Bruce is silent for a moment, then he inclines his head. "Probably not. But he knows I have the access code and that I show up at all odd hours."

"I can't imagine that Tony would just leave and have them lying around like that." Rhodey mumbles under his breath and shakes his head in confusion.

"He didn't leave them alone." Bruce admits slightly uneasily.

"He was there?" The surprise in Clint's voice is obvious. 

"Passed out on the couch with one of the sketchbooks in his hand." Bruce replies even more uneasily. This is getting way more personal than he's comfortable with, especially because it's not his but Tony's privacy he's intruding on.

"So you sneaked a peek of the other sketchbooks." Sam doesn't make it a question, and it's obvious he's not sure whether to approve of it or not. On one hand he clearly doesn't like it that anybody looked at Steve's work without his permission or even knowledge, on the other hand he's obviously well aware that it was necessary in order to achieve progress in their mission of getting Steve and Tony together.

"Maybe I was a little bit curious." Bruce admits with an obviously guilty shrug. "And Steve is a prolific artists, his eye for detail is astonishing."

"So, what was in those books that you think convinces Tony that Steve means it?" Clint is not bothering to hide his curiosity.

Bruce presses his lips together. "It's not my place to tell. It's bad enough that I looked without permission. Please, just accept my word for it."

"So, how did he react to it? What did he say to Steve?" Sam wonders out loud. "Because Steve didn't say a word about it to me."

"Sir hasn't shown any kind of reaction that Captain Rogers would know about." JARVIS sounds positively disapproving. "He has not personally seen Captain Rogers either."

"Yeah, Steve even came to me to ask if Tony actually got the sketchbooks." Bruce confirms.

"Ouch. Poor Steve." Clint actually looks like he feels with Steve. 

"All right." Natasha takes the word and thereby diverts the attention away from Bruce, which he's grateful for. "So we know that Steve is successfully softening Tony up, but Tony is still reluctant to approach Steve in any way. What we need it a final push."

"And how do we do -" Rhodey's question is cut off by the city-wide alarm firing up, followed only seconds later by the Tower's Avengers assemble alarm and JARVIS informing them about another attack by the aliens. Seems they have to postpone their matchmaking conference.

 

 

**Bonus scene 7:**

"Sir, there is something you should look at." JARVIS says through the StarkPhone once the nurse is gone.

"Hit me, JARVIS." Tony says tiredly and leans back in the hospital bed, because if JARVIS deems it important enough minutes after Tony woke in the hospital, then it _really_ is important. He raises his phone so that he can watch the short video that JARVIS has begun playing for him. 

The scene is familiar. He recognises one of the collectors he and Bruce invented, so it's obviously a scene taking place during yesterday's battle. Tony watches himself talking to two soldiers and a black-clad police officer and places the scene as right before he was knocked out. True to his expectations, he and a soldier are hit with energy blasts just a few seconds later. Nothing important or surprising so far, Tony thinks a little impatiently. He's tired, he really wants to go back to sle-

"TONY! NO! TONY!" It's definitely Steve's voice, and it's breaking with terror. He's sprinting across the street at breakneck speed in his haste to get to where Tony is lying motionless on the ground. He lands on his knees and immediately checks Tony's pulse point while the soldiers and police officers around him have successfully defeated the three attacking aliens. Steve seems frantic, readjusting his grip, but he obviously doesn't find a pulse. It doesn't surprise Tony considering that the docs just informed him about his short and fortunately temporary death. But then something happens that Tony never in his life expected to see.

Steve loses it. Totally and absolutely loses it. 

Tony just stares at the screen and can't help thinking that this is the kind of killer the government had hoped for when they funded Project Rebirth. This is not his Steve. This is a super soldier without a moral compass, only focussed on destroying his enemy. It's as much scary as it is oddly beautiful to watch. Steve doesn't lose any of his usual grace, but there is a cold efficiency to his movements that Tony has never seen before. Tony feels almost sorry for the aliens. Almost.

The camera follows Steve until he disappears around the corner of a building in his quest to kill every last alien. A few seconds later the screen goes blank when JARVIS terminates the video, but Tony is still staring at it. There are goosebumps on his arms and down his neck.

"He thought me dead, didn't he?" Tony asks after a moment that he can't determine in its length.

"Yes, Sir. For about forty minutes, until Mr Wilson managed to clear up the situation."

"Did he keep that" - Tony gestures at the screen - "up for the entire time?"

"Yes, Sir." JARVIS is quiet for a moment, then he adds, "Maybe you should believe him, Sir."

"Yeah." Tony agrees, still miles away in his thoughts. "Maybe I should."

And he does. Because he knows _exactly_ what Steve had felt during those forty minutes. The memory Steve's lifeless body on the Brooklyn Bridge still haunts him, after all.

 

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, we're done! Now I can tell you that I wrote this entire thing in 6 days. I didn't want to say that before in case people would think this fic was a rush job - which it wasn't, I spent up to 14 hours a day writing and a lot of money on coffee and green tea in my favourite coffee shops, where I basically camped out the entire time. It was a real writing attack that hit me two days after I had handed in my Master's thesis (a friend of mine asked me if I wasn't sick of writing at that point, and I tried to tell her that a thesis and a fic may be equally exhausting to write, but the latter is definitely more fun XD)
> 
> So, what did you like, what not? Any suggestions for improvement? It's only my third fic in this fandom (and the others were very short compared to this one), so I'm still a bit nervous about character voices - especially considering that I haven't had any contact with the fandom in over 4 months. I'd love to hear from you! Feed my wee author's soul and do your good deed for the day ^_________^


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